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THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 


BOOKS  BY 
ARTHUR  STRINGER 

THE  SILVER  POPPY 
THE   LOOM    OF   DESTINY 
LONELY  O'M ALLEY 
HEPHAESTUS   AND  OTHER   POEMS 
THE  WIRE  TAPPERS 

THE  WOMAN   IN   THE  RAIN   AND  OTHER 
POEMS 

PHANTOM   WIRES 

THE  GUN  RUNNER 

IRISH   POEMS 

THE   HAND  OF  PERIL 

THE  SHADOW 

OPEN   WATER 

THE  DOOR  OF  DREAD 

THE  HOUSE  OF  INTRIGUE 

THE  MAN   WHO  COULDN'T  SLEEP 

THE  PRAIRIE  WIFE 

THE  PRAIRIE  MOTHER 


THE    WINE    OF    LIFE 


By  ARTHUR  STRINGER 


NEW    YORK 

ALFRED  •  A  •  KNOPF 

MCMXXI 


COPYRIGHT,  1921,  BY 
ARTHUR  STRINGER 


Published,  April  1921 
Second  Printing,  April  1921 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES     M?    AMERICA 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 


CHAPTER   ONE 

STORROW  stared  about  the  empty  hotel-room,  now 
denuded  of  its  last  appeasing  touch  of  the  personal. 
Then  he  crossed  to  the  still  open  window. 

As  he  stood  there,  vaguely  oppressed  by  the  thought  of 
how  life  was  for  ever  attaching  itself  to  new  soil  and  was 
for  ever  being  torn  up  from  that  rootage,  the  sound  of  a 
hurdy-gurdy  floated  up  through  the  hot  August  air.  The 
notes,  mellowed  by  a  rampart  of  intervening  roofs  and 
further  muffled  by  the  distant  drone  of  Broadway,  insin 
uated  themselves  into  the  colouring  of  Storrow's  mood 
and  lent  an  overtone  of  wistfulness  to  his  farewell  survey 
of  those  faded  walls  cobwebbed  with  fire-escapes.  His 
week  of  freedom  in  that  shabby  side-street  hotel  had 
not  been  an  unhappy  one.  He  had  found  nothing  repug 
nant  in  its  ugliness,  in  its  gilded  slatternliness,  in  its  noc 
turnal  pianos  and  its  noisy  house-dogs,  in  the  kimonoed 
figures  that  fluttered  about  a  hallway  filled  with  the  be 
traying  odours  of  illicit  cookery. 

It  had  at  least  conferred  on  Storrow  the  gift  of  free 
dom.  And  freedom,  he  knew,  was  the  one  thing  he 
would  always  demand  of  life.  Elbow-room,  he  felt,  must 
always  be  his,  the  right  to  come  and  go  at  his  own  sweet 
will,  the  right  to  idle  or  work,  to  rise  or  fall,  to  tool  his 
own  personal  destinies  upward  or  downward  across  the 
Great  Divides  of  life  as  he  chose.  He  remembered,  as 
he  stared  idly  down  at  a  tarred  and  gravelled  roof  lit 
tered  with  orange-peel  and  empty  bottles  and  cigarette 
ends,  how  the  easy-going  and  slipshod  atmosphere  of  this 
third-rate  Tenderloin  hotel  had  appealed  to  him.  Its  un 
ruffled  and  urban  self -concernment,  its  shoddy  and  casual 


2  THE   WINE   OF   LIFE 

reticences,  had  provided  him  with  the  cover  he  craved, 
cover  as  screening  as  the  hemlocked  and  the  blue-valleyed 
solitudes  that  had  once  been  his. 

But  now  he  had  finished  with  it.  Finished,  too,  he 
would  be  with  his  eager  and  unattached  wanderings  about 
the  city,  the  city  in  undress  because  of  its  summer-end 
heat,  the  city  undraped  in  its  panting  misery  to  his  ever- 
questing  eye.  All  the  artist  in  him  had  joyed  in  the  mid 
night  parks  crowded  with  sleepers,  in  the  half -clad  fig 
ures,  the  poses  of  utter  abandon,  the  huddled  and  motion 
less  groups  making  the  greensward  look  so  like  a  battle 
field  strewn  with  its  dead.  He  had  gloried  in  the  acci 
dental  grouping  of  half -nude  children  about  a  water-hy 
drant.  He  had  revelled  in  the  Hogarthian  intimate  nudi 
ties  of  the  tenement  districts,  in  the  occasional  statuesque 
pose  of  an  Italian  girl  asleep  on  the  pavement  of  an 
open  area- way,  in  the  lassitude  of  a  painted  woman  sit 
ting  under  midnight  trees,  panting  for  breath,  shadowed 
from  the  street-lamps  by  leaves  so  motionless  they  looked 
as  though  they  had  been  stencilled  out  of  sheets  of  brazen 
metal.  He  had  loved  to  stare  from  the  height  of  Murray 
Hill  down  the  midnight  quietness  of  Fifth  Avenue,  where 
the  huge  milky  lamp-globes  fell  away  in  a  double  row,  like 
twin  ropes  of  pearls  drooping  from  a  languid  woman's 
throat.  He  had  gloried  in  gazing  at  the  intermittent 
splash  of  the  Madison  Square  fountain,  throbbing  and 
falling,  throbbing  and  falling,  as  though  it  were  the  heart 
beat  of  the  tired  city  itself.  He  had  liked  that  city  in  its 
hours  of  sleep,  etherealized  by  moonlight,  transformed 
by  dusk  and  mystery  into  a  tranquillized  loveliness  as 
alluring  as  a  star-bathed  Coliseum  under  its  violet  Ital 
ian  skies.  He  had  carried  a  sketching-block  about  with 
him,  and  had  snatched  at  groupings  and  poses  and  taken 
notes  and  carried  home  pocketfuls  of  unco-ordinated  and 
unassimilated  impressions,  gorging  his  soul  on  them,  as 
voracious  as  a  child  let  loose  in  a  candy-shop.  He  was 
used  to  the  wilderness,  and  had  long  since  acquired  the 


THE   WINE   OF   LIFE  3 

lone-wolf  habit  of  wandering  about  at  his  own  free  will, 
gathering  up  what  lay  in  the  path  of  his  observation. 
And  in  this  newer  wild'erness  of  stone  and  steel  and  brick, 
\vhich  could  stand  to  the  stranger  in  its  midst  even  more 
desolate  than  the  Barren  Grounds  themselves,  Storrow 
rode  the  flying  hooves  of  Curiosity  and  Caprice. 

Those  feverish  flights  had  both  humbled  him  and  inspir 
ited  him.  He  had  barked  his  shins  on  the  discovery  of 
how  little  he  knew  and  how  much  there  was  to  know.  He 
had  wakened  to  find  himself  only  one  of  an  army,  a  mul 
titudinous  and  ever-elbowing  army  whose  mere  magni 
tude  left  him  a  little  dizzy  and  homesick.  New  York, 
he  found,  was  too  intent  on  the  pursuit  of  its  own  febrile 
ends  to  pay  much  attention  to  either  him  or  his  trunkful 
of  clay-modellings  so  carefully  wrapped  in  cheesecloth. 
But  there  was  much  to  be  seen  and  learned,  and  in  that 
vigorous  young  body  was  repeated  the  ancient  miracle  of 
the  nestling  round-eyed  confronting  the  universe,  of 
youth  peering  hungrily  across  the  first  ramparts  of  the 
world. 

Storrow,  moist  with  the  heat,  pushed  the  window  up  as 
far  as  it  would  go.  He  leaned  out  across  the  dusty  sill, 
staring  more  abstractedly  than  ever  at  the  scabby  and 
close-shouldered  precipices  of  brick  down  which  cas 
caded  the  countless  fire-escapes  of  rusty  iron.  The  metal 
trellis  directly  in  front  of  him,  smitten  by  the  afternoon 
sun,  made  him  think  of  a  gridiron.  It  had  been  a 
scorcher,  that  day,  one  of  the  worst  of  the  summer-end 
hot-spell  which  was  leaving  the  city  as  wilted  as  a  let 
tuce-leaf  on  a  range-shelf.  The  sun  that  slanted  over 
water-tanks  and  walls  and  roofs,  Oriental  in  their  hud 
dling  sky-line,  threw  creeping  blue  shadows  across  the 
narrow  valley  of  light-wells  and  back  areas  twisting  like  a 
miniature  Grand  Canyon  between  the  double  row  of 
apartment-hotels  and  rooming-houses  that  ran  westward 
from  Times  Square  towards  the  rattling  Elevated  of 
Sixth  Avenue. 


4  THE   WINE   OF   LIFE 

Storrow  stared  impersonally  out  at  his  vista  of  mottled 
walls  and  littered  fire-escapes  and  asphalted  back-yards. 
Through  that  echoing  valley,  by  night,  countless  stray 
cats  had  the  habit  of  reiterating  their  amorous  miseries, 
mingled  with  the  pulse  of  a  three-piece  Italian  orchestra 
and  the  insistent  nearby  roar  of  Broadway.  Yet  both  the 
sounds  and  the  sights  of  that  little  valley  had  appealed  to 
him,  impregnating  his  new-found  desolation  with  an  in 
terweaving  tangle  of  intimacies,  leaving  his  city  a  little 
more  humanized,  a  little  closer  to  him,  like  an  over- 
haughty  beauty  accidentally  seen  in  deshabille. 

Even  the  scene  itself  struck  him  as  anything  but  ugly. 
He  was  still  too  much  a  new-comer  on  that  triangulated 
island  of  unrest  to  find  any  corner  of  it  without  some 
touch  of  appeal.  Over  that  welter  of  sun-baked  roofs, 
indeed,  hung  a  mist  of  pale  gold,  toning  down  to  a  thin 
wash  of  green  in  the  softer  shadows,  deepening  again  to 
a  valley-blue  where  the  walls  ended  in  the  narrow  area- 
ways  strung  like  musical  instruments  with  their  pulleyed 
clothes-lines.  Above  the  eaves,  on  his  right,  towered  the 
dormer-roof  of  a  great  hotel,  pearled  with  its  rows  of 
electric-globes.  Closer  to  him,  obliquely  across  the  can 
yon,  stood  a  much  humbler  caravansary,  plainly  a  theatri 
cal  apartment-hotel  like  his  own.  He  had  always  thought 
of  the  people  in  that  hotel  as  cliff-dwellers,  with  the  sills 
of  their  narrow  windows  crowded  by  countless  betrayals 
of  extremely  frugal  house-keeping,  half-emptied  milk- 
bottles,  biscuit-cartons,  paper-covered  marmalade-jars,  an 
apple  or  two  beside  the  vivid  yellow  of  oranges,  an  occa 
sional  row  of  beer-bottles,  a  container  of  sliced  bacon 
cheek  by  jowl  with  a  seltzer-siphon.  In  the  wider  win 
dows,  opening  on  sleeping-rooms,  he  had  often  caught 
sight  of  freshly  washed  underclothing,  thin  stockings  and 
swaying  lingerie  hanging  a  little  forlornly  in  that  none  too 
virgin  air.  Yet  even  in  those  humdrum  drying  garments 
Storrow  had  always  found  a  wayward  and  wordless  ap 
peal.  He  tried  to  tell  himself  that  it  was  because  their 


THE   WINE    OF   LIFE  5 

whites  and  pinks,  their  suggestive  lacy  softnesses,  pro 
vided  a  needed  touch  of  human  warmth,  of  conciliating 
frailnesses,  to  the  urban  and  indurated  hardness  of  line 
all  about  him.  They  were  like  bird-feathers,  he  felt, 
found  in  a  coign  along  cliffs  of  granite. 

Then  Storrow's  gaze,  as  he  leaned  further  out  the  win 
dow  in  quest  of  these  ever-ameliorating  intimacies  of  life, 
fell  on  a  figure  which  had  hitherto  escaped  him.  It  was 
that  of  a  girl  in  an  open  window  almost  directly  below  his 
own.  She  sat  motionless  on  the  wide  sill,  across  which  a 
newspaper  had  been  spread.  Her  feet  were  crossed 
tailor- fashion  and  rested  on  the  rusty  iron  slats  of  the  fire- 
escape  in  front  of  her,  where  an  open  book  lay  face  down. 
Beside  her,  on  the  newspaper,  reposed  a  little  scattering  of 
metal  hair-pins,  and  in  one  hand,  now  resting  idly  on  her 
knee,  she  held  a  heavy  white  comb.  So  motionless  did 
she  sit,  in  fact,  that  her  posture  quickly  brought  to  Stor 
row's  mind  the  suggestion  of  a  sun- worshipper. 

Yet  he  knew,  the  next  moment,  that  she  had  merely 
been  drying  her  hair.  He  could,  in  fact,  plainly  discern  a 
cluster  of  hair-pins  still  held  between  her  lips.  He  no 
ticed,  as  she  tossed  the  loose  torrent  of  hair  back  from  her 
face,  that  her  arms  and  shoulders  were  quite  bare,  her  skin 
standing  out  a  milk-weed  white  against  that  waving  cur 
tain  of  gloom.  For  this  hair,  Storrow  noticed,  was  ex 
tremely  thick  and  heavy,  a  dull  mahogany-brown  in  tone. 
Yet  it  was  quite  without  wave,  as  uncompromisingly 
straight  as  an  Indian's,  less  suggestive  of  beauty,  in  its 
thick-flowing  mass,  than  of  strength. 

Storrow  realized,  as  he  watched  her,  that  she  in  turn 
was  intent  on  watching  something  at  the  back  of  the  eat 
ing-house  where  the  Italian  orchestra  played  by  night. 
Following  the  direction  of  her  gaze,  he  caught  sight  of  a 
lean  and  hungry  cat  reaching  up  to  a  window-sill  on 
which  rested  a  pan  of  freshly-boiled  lobsters,  as  red  as 
a  cardinal's  cap.  That  odorous  wealth,  however,  seemed 
just  beyond  the  reach  of  the  hungry  animal,  which 


6  THE   WINE   OF   LIFE 

stretched  and  clawed  and  complained  thinly  as  it  contin 
ued  its  ineffectual  efforts  to  reach  the  pan. 

It  was  a  trivial  enough  incident,  yet  it  made  a  picture 
which  in  some  way  became  memorable  to  Storrow,  a  lean 
and  padded  Hunger  writhing  and  pawing  and  whining  for 
that  savoury  meal,  as  rich  in  aroma  as  it  was  in  colour,  just 
beyond  its  reach.  It  seemed  Desire  made  manifest,  un 
controlled  and  torturing  appetite  typified  by  an  eager  and 
lean-ribbed  body  quivering  with  its  self-immuring  ache 
for  the  unattainable.  It  made  him  think  of  his  long- 
treasured  print  of  Rodin's  La  Porte  de  I'Enjer,  of  the 
great  door  about  which  writhed  and  coiled  and  reached 
the  tormented  creatures  of  desire,  fevering  for  that  which 
they  were  denied,  fighting,  unsatisfied,  for  that  which  was 
for  ever  beyond  their  hands. 

Yet  the  next  moment  Storrow  was  thinking  about 
neither  the  Rodin  frieze  nor  the  drab-coloured  street-cat 
and  its  cardinal-red  shell-fish,  for  his  gaze  had  wandered 
back  to  the  girl  in  the  window  so  much  closer  to  him. 
She  had  thrown  back  her  loose  hair,  with  a  circular  back- 
toss  of  her  head,  and  with  slow  and  meditative  fingers 
was  now  coiling  that  heavy  mane  together.  She  seemed, 
in  fact,  still  to  be  watching  the  cat  and  the  lobster-pan  as 
she  abstractedly  took  hair-pin  after  hair-pin  from  her 
compressed  lips.  Her  face  was  quite  uncovered  by  this 
time,  though  it  was  not  her  face  which  Storrow  first 
studied.  What  first  impressed  him  were  the  stockingless 
feet  resting  on  the  fire-escape  rods.  These  feet  were 
thrust  into  faded  red  Turkish  slippers,  which  drooped 
from  the  toes,  leaving  bare  the  line  of  the  heel,  as  clear-cut 
as  the  heel  of  a  razor.  Then,  as  she  swayed  forward  in 
her  meditative  up-coiling  of  that  heavy  rope  of  hair,  he 
noticed  the  thickness  of  the  milky-white  shoulders,  which 
seemed  heavy  for  a  body  carrying  so  distinct  a  note  of 
slenderness.  This  impression  of  plastic  solidity  was  re 
peated  in  the  leaning  torso  itself,  so  maturely  thick  from 
the  full  shoulder-blade  to  the  flat  firm  breast.  He  knew 


THE   WINE   OF   LIFE  7 

enough  of  anatomy  to  accept  this  as  an  announcement  of 
physical  vigour,  as  a  symbol  of  bodily  strength  which  he 
found  repeated  in  the  round  unmuscled  arms,  in  the  full 
column  of  the  throat,  in,  the  calisthenic  line  of  the  hips 
which  even  the  girl's  squatting  position  failed  to  fore 
shorten  into  heaviness.  That  body,  in  fact,  made  him 
think  of  a  young  colt's,  though  he  was  not  sure  whether 
this  arose  from  its  hint  of  undisciplined  vitality  or  from 
something  animal-like  in  the  girl's  serene  unconcern  as 
to  even  that  partial  nudity. 

This  absence  of  sex  consciousness,  in  fact,  took  Stor- 
row's  gaze  back  to  her  face.  It  was,  in  many  ways,  a 
remarkable  face.,  though  he  could  not  see  it  as  distinctly 
as  he  wished.  His  first  impression  of  it  was  one  of  care 
less  vitality,  of  over-abundant  and  as  yet  unco-ordinated 
ardour.  But  the  next  moment  this  was  contradicted  by  a 
subsidiary  and  more  persistent  impression  of  lassitude,  of 
something  that  seemed  to  approach  languid  and  sophisti 
cated  self-concernment.  He  was  anxious  to  see  her  eyes, 
as  though  by  them  to  contradict  or  confirm  this  impres 
sion.  But  they  were  hooded  in  shadow  by  the  heavy 
brows,  and  all  he  could  be  sure  of  was  that  they  were  wide 
apart,  so  wide  apart,  indeed,  that  they  carried  to  his  mind 
a  vague  hint  of  Egyptian  sarcophagal  drawings.  In  col 
our,  he  conjectured,  those  eyes  would  be  dark,  as  dark  as 
the  loosely  coiled  hair  with  which  the  slow  white  hands 
were  crowning  the  over-weighted  head.  Her  mouth,  he 
could  see,  was  undoubtedly  large,  and  of  a  vivid  red,  a 
red  that  gave  buoyancy  to  a  jaw  already  too  heavy  in  its 
width  of  line,  accentuating  some  wordless  suggestion  of 
Orientalism  in  her  character,  an  Orientalism  which  the 
lucid  and  wide-set  eyes  seemed  always  to  contradict.  The 
nose  was  short  and  straight,  too  thin-bridged  to  seem  re- 
pellently  sensual  yet  with  a  faint  out-flare  of  the  nostrils 
which  might  in  part  have  accounted  for  his  earlier  impres 
sion  of  wild-animal  eagerness.  And  if  the  eye-brows 
were  heavy  they  at  least  gave-  an  air  of  thought  to  a  face 


8  THE   WINE    OF   LIFE 

not  otherwise  intellectual,  an  air  of  child-like  and  wistful 
broodingness. 

Why  it  impressed  him  as  a  face  of  depth  Storrow  could 
not  tell.  That  impression,  he  felt,  might  be  based  on  its 
very  contradictions,  for  his  final  estimate  of  her  became 
one  of  loose-jointed  compactness,  of  vigour  in  lassitude, 
of  strength  in  slenderness.  But  the  woman,  like  the  face, 
was  a  challenge  to  him.  In  each  seemed  to  lurk  the  peri 
lous  note  of  intimacy,  the  promise  of  mystery,  the  arrest 
ing  air  of  a  barricaded  citadel  which  could  be  carried 
only  by  storm  and  violence.  And  yet  he  was  staring  at 
a  girl,  he  remembered,  who  was  shameless  enough  to  sit 
half -dressed  on  the  window-sill  of  a  Rialto  hotel  and 
dangle  her  heels  on  a  dirty  fire-escape. 

What  prompted  that  sudden  revulsion  of  feeling  Stor 
row  could  never  quite  understand.  But  his  interest  in  the 
half-draped  figure,  for  all  its  pictorial  values,  seemed  to 
seep  away.  His  eyes  had  exhausted  her,  like  a  landscape 
too  minutely  over-looked.  She  became  merely  a  lazy- 
bodied  young  animal  sunning  herself  on  the  edge  of  an 
unkempt  rooming-house  fire-escape.  There  would  be 
much  that  was  sordid  about  her,  he  remembered,  just  as 
the  atmosphere  in  which  she  existed  was  sordid.  Proof 
of  this  all-pervading  sordidness,  in  fact,  came  up  to  him 
even  as  he  stared  down  into  the  unclean  area  below.  He 
could  hear  the  sound  of  wrangling  voices  from  the  base 
ment  doorway  of  the  very  building  in  which  he  stood,  a 
wordy  warfare  which  was  not  altogether  unfamiliar  to 
him. 

He  knew,  even  before  that  fiercely  quarrelling  couple 
came  out  into  the  open,  that  it  was  Michael  Mullaly,  the 
blowsy  engineer  of  that  ill-kept  apartment-hotel,  once 
more  fighting  with  his  wife.  In  this  case,  however,  their 
quarrel  soon  gave  every  evidence  of  developing  into  some 
thing  more  than  the  customary  exchange  of  unclean  lan 
guage.  It  was  already  more  than  a  mere  clash  of  words, 
for  Mullaly,  obviously  depressed  by  that  unmitigated  heat 


THE   WINE   OF   LIFE  9 

of  a  New  York  midsummer  afternoon,  had  sought  a 
short-cut  to  oblivion  by  mingling  cooling  draughts  of  bot 
tled  beer  with  the  firier  assuagement  of  fusel-oil  whiskey. 
Whereupon,  it  was  equally  plain,  he  was  exercising  the 
ancient  and  established  prerogative  of  using  his  fists  upon 
the  features  of  his  protesting  helpmate,  who,  Storrow  no 
ticed,  was  not  taking  this  punishment  without  some  slight 
reciprocation  of  force. 

Yet  that  combat  now  seemed  something  very  remote 
from  Storrow.  He  had  seen  too  much  of  life  in  the 
wilds  to  be  particularly  moved  by  conflict  as  mere  con 
flict.  The  city,  too,  had  already  touched  him  with  some 
shadow  of  its  self -immurement.  It  had  sufficiently  im 
pressed  him  with  its  first  social  lesson  of  remembering  to 
mind  his  own  business.  And  the  last  light-shaft  of  the 
coppery  afternoon  <sun  was  slanting  like  a  mellowed  cal 
cium-flare  across  the  fire-escape  platform  on  which  the 
bare-shouldered  girl  was  now  standing,  enriching  both 
drapery  and  milky-skinned  figure  with  new  and  arresting 
shadows,  picking  her  out  line  by  line  as  she  stood  there 
in  her  careless  and  preoccupied  pose  until  she  seemed  plas 
tic,  statuesque,  as  marble-like  as  a  Caryatid  leaning  from  a 
temple-wall.  Again  the  pendulum-swing  of  emotion 
carried  his  interest  back  to  a  subject  which  he  had  only 
thought  to  be  exhausted,  though  it  piqued  him  a  little  that 
this  alert  figure  so  near  him  could  remain  so  unconscious 
of  his  presence  there  above  her. 

The  combat  in  the  area,  however,  was  already  becom 
ing  more  Homeric,  more  explosive  in  movement.  Stor 
row  could  see  the  girl  on  the  fire-escape  lean  further  out 
over  the  rusty  iron-railing,  and  for  the  second  time  he  let 
his  eyes  follow  her  line  of -vision.  He  could  see  the  big- 
limbed  engineer,  in  short-sleeved  undershirt  and  soiled 
denim  jumper,  strike  viciously  at  the  upturned  face  of 
his  mate.  Yet  even  then  the  persistent  artistic  impulse  of 
the  studious-eyed  youth  prompted  him  to  take  impersonal 
note  of  the  brawny  chest  and  the  huge-muscled  biceps,  for 


10  THEWINEOFLIFE 

Mullaly  in  his  younger  day  had  toiled  long  and  ardu 
ously  as  a  Pittsburgh  steel-puddler  and  his  strength  was 
still  that  of  an  Antaeus.  If  he  seemed  intent  on  exercis 
ing  what  remained  of  this  strength  on  the  less  sinewy 
sharer  of  his  joys  and  sorrows,  that  ragged-waisted  fury, 
still  fighting  like  a  cat,  stood  able  to  prevent  the  conflict 
from  being  an  altogether  one-sided  matter.  She  contin 
ued  to  dispute  his  mastery,  by  tongue  and  nail  and  tooth, 
until  Mullaly  managed  to  draw  back  his  great  fist  and 
bring  it  flat  down  on  the  face  of  the  woman  clawing  and 
clinging  to  him. 

"  You  brute! "  gasped  out  the  bare-shouldered  girl 
from  the  fire-escape. 

That  expletive  seemed  to  awaken  in  Storrow  his  first 
active  interest  in  the  combat  below.  If  it  awakened  in 
him  a  corresponding  impulse  towards  interference,  the 
impulse  was  not  an  overmastering  one.  And  again  Mul- 
laly's  well-placed  fist  fell  on  the  upturned  face  so  close  to 
his  shoulder. 

"Oh,  you  beast!"  the  girl  called  shudderingly  down 
into  that  echoing  well  of  shadow.  And  that  shrill  chal 
lenge  both  arrested  and  nettled  the  sottish  man  now  sure 
of  his  victory.  He  lifted  his  head,  like  a  wounded  moose, 
and  stared  drunkenly  upward. 

"  So  it's  yuh,  yuh  -  — !  "  he  trumpeted  defiantly  up 
out  of  those  echoing  depths.  And  having  delivered  him 
self  of  that  ultimate  epithet,  absolute  in  its  finality,  unsur 
passable  in  its  contempt,  he  went  on  with  the  task  more 
immediately  before  him. 

Storrow  heard  that  foul  word,  that  impossible  word, 
just  as  he  had  heard  the  throaty  soprano  of  the  high- 
pitched  voice  which  even  shrillness  failed  to  rob  of  its 
richness.  He  could  also  catch  the  quick  wince  of  the 
girl's  stooping  body,  as  though  a  lash  had  fallen  across 
her  bare  shoulders. 

He  was  never  quite  sure  in  his  own  mind  as  to  which 
it  was  that  fired  the  train.  But  through  his  body  went 


THE   WINE   OF   LIFE  11 

the  feral  flash,  like  a  splutter  of  fireworks.  He  tingled 
and  burned  with  a  sudden  righteous  indignation,  with 
a  quick  rage  that  sent  him  vaulting  through  the  open  win 
dow  to  the  fire-escape  platform  in  front  of  him  as  un 
thinkingly  as  though  the  room-floor  beneath  him  had 
risen  and  projected  him  upward  and  outward.  He  heard 
the  girl's  gasp  of  astonished  fright  as  he  went  scrambling 
down  the  iron  ladder  and  swept  past  her  timorously  with 
drawn  body.  But  he  went  nimbly  on,  with  the  anger  of 
a  Galahad  singing  in  his  ears.  It  had  occurred  to  him,  by 
this  time,  that  it  was  a  terrible  and  unforgiveable  thing 
to  strike  a  woman.  And  as  he  dropped  as  lightly  as  a 
cougar  from  the  lowermost  iron  platform  to  the  asphalted 
area-floor,  close  beside  the  astounded  and  somewhat 
breathless  Irishman,  he  was  as  drunk,  in  his  own  way,  as 
that  denim-clad  engineer  confronting  him.  But  it  was 
not  on  fusel-oil  whiskey. 

Yet  befuddled  as  that  lordly  Hibernian  may  have  been, 
he  understood  clearly  enough  what  interference  at  any 
such  moment  implied.  And  there  was  neither  concern 
nor  hesitation  in  his  movements  as  he  swung  about  and 
squared  for  action.  In  his  day  Michael  Mullaly  had  met 
and  worsted  too  many  burly  iron-workers  to  be  intimi 
dated  by  a  youth  who  failed  even  to  observe  the  ancient 
ceremonial  of  removing  his  coat  before  venturing  into 
battle.  Imperiously  and  impersonally  he  flung  his  bat 
tered  help-mate  to  one  side,  intent  on  disposing  of  this 
trouble-maker  who  had  dared  to  interfere  with  an  honest 
man  in  his  honest  diversions. 

Nor  was  there  any  trace  of  hesitation,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  Owen  Storrow's  movements.  He  was  smaller 
than  the  bare-armed  Hercules  in  the  denim  jumper,  but 
his  four  months  of  North  Woods  life  had  left  him  trained 
to  the  bone.  Life  in  the  open,  all  that  spring  and  sum 
mer,  had  crowned  his  weeks  of  hardship  with  endurance 
and  self-confidence  and  the  quick- footed  resourcefulness 
of  a  cat.  More  than  once,  too,  he  had  stood  up  before 


12  THE   WINE   OF   LIFE 

'\ 

men  quite  as  burly  as  Mullaly  and  had  been  able  to  hold 
his  own.  Yet  behind  that  hard-won  self-assurance  was 
the  fire  of  the  Crusader,  the  will  of  the  righter  of  wrongs, 
the  'morale  of  the  lover  of  decency  outraged  beyond  en 
durance. 

This  impression  of  knightly  enterprise  was  intensified, 
to  Storrow,  by  the  memory  of  the  girl  watching  him 
from  her  open  window.  It  swayed  him  with  a  deter 
mination  to  have  the  affair  a  clear-cut  one,  as  brief  and 
decisive  as  it  was  dramatic.  But  the  vast  majority  of 
fights  in  real  life,  unfortunately,  are  not  of  this  nature. 
It  is  something  peculiar  to  the  pages  of  romance,  that 
quickly  and  carefully  delivered  blow  of  the  clenched  fist 
which  sends  Evil  sprawling  ignominiously  earthward. 
And  Storrow  soon  awakened  to  the  disconcerting  fact 
that  the  present  combat  was  not  destined  to  be  of  that  en 
gagingly  romantic  disposition.  There  was  no  prompt 
knock-out,  no  cool  and  lightning-like  coup  de  grace.  For 
Mullaly,  in  the  first  place,  was  an  opponent  of  unexpected 
solidity,  a  hulk  of  quite  amazing  hardness.  And  the  hu 
man  fist,  no  matter  what  the  will  behind  it,  is  an  instru 
ment  of  qualified  efficiency  when  it  comes  to  a  matter  of 
pile-driving  repentance  into  corporeal  grossness.  Flex 
ors  and  phalanges,  when  in  too  violent  collision  with  bone 
and  sinew,  cannot  hope  to  survive  such  actions  without  in 
jury.  And  fighting  with  sore  knuckles  is  altogether  as 
uninviting  as  walking  with  sore  feet.  Then,  too,  the 
singing  fires  of  fusel-oil  whiskey  coursing  through  Mul- 
laly's  big  veins  left  him  disturbingly  impervious  to  any 
pains  attendant  upon  well-clumped  jaw-bone  and  hard- 
pounded  cheek-flap.  Muddled  as  his  slow  Celtic  mind 
may  have  been,  the  moves  and  tricks  and  resources  of  a 
life-time  of  combat  did  not  altogether  desert  him.  So 
when  he  fought  he  was  able  to  do  so  with  a  stubborn  and 
groggy  science  by  no  means  contemptible. 

The  situation,  in  fact,  began  to  worry  Storrow  not  a 
little,  clearly  as  right  was  on  his  side  and  repeatedly  as  he 


THEWINEOFLIFE  13 

was  able  to  plant  his  blows  on  the  hide  of  that  thick- 
muscled  opponent.  Intelligence  was  with  him,  as  was 
also  alertness  and  the  resiliency  of  youth.  Yet  the  im 
placable  laws  of  Chance  ordained  that  at  least  an  occa 
sional  blow  from  that  ponderous  Celtic  fist  should  reach 
home,  however  parried  by  guard-arm  or  rendered  oblique 
by  side-stepping.  Storrow  could  taste  the  salt  of  sweat 
on  his  dripping  face.  He  could  also  see  blood  dripping 
from  a  cut  on  his  lip,  and  the  numb  pain  in  his  bruised  and 
battered  knuckles  became  something  to  be  no  longer  over 
looked.  He  remembered,  through  a  mist  of  fatigue,  that 
he  was  not  cutting  the  heroic  figure  he  had  expected.  He 
realized  there  was  a  definite  limit  to  the  period  which  all 
such  things  could  be  endured.  What  was  worse,  he 
awakened  to  the  fact  that  there  were  more  faces  than  one 
now  watching  him  and  his  ignominious  efforts,  fixed  and 
impassive  faces  in  window  after  window  above  him. 
And  with  a  grip  of  the  jaw  he  took  himself  in  hand  and 
began  to  fight  as  he  had  never  fought  before. 

Storrow  startled  his  enemy  by  no  longer  giving  ground 
before  superior  weight.  Even  when  forced  to  his  knees, 
he  ducked,  clenched,  and  in  some  way  struggled  again  to 
his  feet.  Yet  if  he  fought  fiercely,  he  also  fought  delib 
erately.  He  knew  now  that  there  must  be  no  waste  of 
energy.  He  worried  over  his  finger-bones,  oppressed  by 
a  foolish  fear  that  he  might  break  one  of  these  and  find 
himself  with  a  useless  hand.  Skinned  and  burning  as  his 
knuckles  had  become,  from  impact  against  that  obdurate 
hulk  on  which  they  so  repeatedly  thumped  and  thudded, 
he  remembered  they  were  all  he  had  to  depend  upon,  that 
they  must  do  their  work  more  adroitly,  choose  their  tar 
get  more  expertly. 

The  result  of  this  access  to  science,  of  this  coup  d'etat 
of  Reason  against  Passion,  was  a  slight  but  a  distinctly 
perceptible  change  in  the  tide  of  conflict.  A  look  of  be 
wilderment  came  into  Mullaly's  set  face.  A  vague  uncer 
tainty  began  to  mark  his  movements.  He  shambled  and 


14  THE   WINE   OF   LIFE 

shuffled  and  circled  about  his  narrow  field  of  asphalt  with 
increasing  evidences  of  distress.  Storrow  made  note  of 
that  indecision  in  the  timing  and  placing  of  counter- 
strokes,  that  telltale  proneness  to  fan  the  air.  And  his 
dragging  spirits  raised,  revived,  and  expressed  themselves 
in  a  sudden  vicious  onslaught  which  brought  a  futile  gasp 
of  protest  from  the  sweat-drenched  Irish  face.  Mullaly 
was  bleeding  by  this  time,  bleeding  profusely  and  pictori- 
ally,  streaking  a  sleeveless  undershirt  already  wet  to  the 
waist  as  his  huge  paws  flailed  the  air  and  fell  so  distress 
ingly  on  emptiness. 

So  wavering  were  his  uncontrolled  stumbles  about  that 
dusty  arena,  in  fact,  that  Storrow  could  already  coolly 
foresee  the  end.  He  was  even  able  to  deliberate,  with 
one  half  of  his  still  busy  brain,  which  hand  it  would  be 
better  to  use  for  that  final  blow,  that  ultimate  knock-out 
which  was  surely  going  to  be  hard  on  the  already  over- 
bruised  phalanges.  Anxious  as  he  was  for  that  end,  he 
schooled  himself  into  a  sort  of  second  wind  of  deliberate- 
ness.  He  remembered  the  bare-shouldered  girl  in  the 
window  above  him.  He  desired  above  everything  that 
she  should  witness  that  final  effort  and  appreciate  its 
effect.  So  he  withheld  the  end,  mercilessly,  manoeuvring 
guardedly  for  position  and  grouping,  even  while  he  in 
wardly  cogitated  just  where  the  blow  should  be  placed. 

The  chance  for  that  blow  was  finally  before  him,  and 
the  struggles  of  an  overheated  and  ridiculously  dishev 
elled  young  Galahad  would  surely  have  been  crowned 
with  triumph,  had  not  Fate,  in  the  form  of  Michael  Mul- 
laly's  better-half,  seen  fit  to  take  a  hand  in  that  contest. 
The  blood  that  flowed  so  freely  from  his  hide,  apparently, 
had  washed  away  from  his  mate  the  last  of  her  enmity. 
Mere  personal  issues  vanished  into  thin  air  before  the 
more  momentous  indignities  being  inflicted  upon  her 
lord  and  master.  And  disgrace,  eternal  and  indisputable 
disgrace,  was  about  to  be  heaped  upon  the  name  of  Mul 
laly. 


THEWINEOFLIFE  15 

So  quite  unnoticed  by  the  preoccupied  combatants 
shuffling  and  grasping  about  that  highwalled  back-yard, 
she  vanished  through  her  basement  door  and  sought  pos 
session  of  that  same  coal-shovel  with  which  Michael  had 
so  recently  demonstrated  his  strength  on  her  own  indig 
nant  person.  Slipping  back  to  the  field  of  conflict,  she 
approached  the  still  preoccupied  Storrow,  with  this  shovel 
poised  above  her  head.  She  did  not  deliberate,  because 
there  was  no  need  for  deliberation.  She  saw  her  chance, 
and  she  seized  it.  With  a  strength  born  of  righteous  in 
dignation  she  brought  the  broadside  of  that  heavy  shovel 
down  on  the  head  of  the  youth  who  had  so  lightly  insin 
uated  his  person  into  the  intimacies  of  family  relation 
ships. 

If  it  was  an  unmeditated  blow,  it  was  also  a  workman 
like  and  well-placed  one.  It  brought  a  world,  covered 
with  asphalt,  slapping  up  against  Storrow's  startled  face. 
It  did  not  leave  him  altogether  unconscious,  but  it  left  him 
stunned,  and  limp,  like  a  wet  feather-pillow.  It  left  him 
with  a  child-like  craving  to  rest  there,  prone  on  his  back, 
until  a  much-misbehaving  universe  could  again  swing 
back  into  balance.  It  also  left  him  with  an  altogether 
new-born  indifference  as  to  that  enemy  on  whom  his  in 
terest  had  been  so  actively  and  so  recently  centred. 
Storrow  preferred  resting  there,  on  the  comfortable  as 
phalt,  until  that  momentary  daze  had  deserted  him. 

When  he  opened  his  eyes  and  Intelligence  once  more  re 
mounted  her  outraged  throne  neither  Michael  Mullaly  nor 
his  spouse  was  within  hailing  distance.  They  had  tri 
umphantly  yet  discreetly  withdrawn,  vanishing  into  home 
ports  for  repairs.  But  Storrow,  as  he  lay  there  blinking 
ruefully  upward,  found  no  such  harbourage  at  hand.  He 
found  himself  stretched  out,  indeed,  very  much  like  a 
Dying  Gladiator,  the  centre  of  a  small  but  an  extremely 
deep-sided  amphitheatre  of  spectators.  From  the  serried 
windows  on  each  side  of  that  narrow  area  faces  stared 
down  at  him,  grinning  faces,  vaguely  commiserative 


16  THE  kWINE  OF  LIFE 

faces,  indifferent  faces.  They  brought  home  to  him  the 
bitter  memory  of  his  undoing.  He  had  gone  down  ig- 
nominiously,  unheroically,  at  the  hand  of  a  woman.  And 
at  that  very  moment  other  women  were  contemplating  his 
helplessness,  his  humiliation,  his  posture  of  self-acknowl 
edged  defeat. 

The  sting  of  that  brought  Storrow-  back  to  his  senses. 
He  scrambled  to  his  feet  and  spat  the  blood  from  his 
mouth.  Then,  still  a  little  dizzy,  he  staggered  towards 
the  only  cover  that  presented  itself.  This,  oddly  enough, 
happened  to  be  the  basement-door  which  opened  into  the 
domain  of  Michael  Mullaly  himself.  But  Storrow,  with 
his  head  still  throbbing,  was  indifferent  to  all  such  de 
tails.  The  one  thing  he  demanded  was  seclusion.  He 
ached  for  the  quiet  and  peace  of  his  private  and  personal 
quarters,  just  as  the  sorely  hurt  grizzly  aches  for  his  lair 
and  the  wounded  lion  for  his  cave.  He  wanted  solitude 
and  the  balm  of  Time  on  his  bruises.  For  his  lip  was  cut 
and  bleeding,  his  head  was  a  ball  of  pulsing  fire,  and 
about  his  body  were  many  spots  extremely  sensitive  to 
the  touch.  Yet  he  dreaded  the  thought  of  public  parade 
up  through  that  peering-eyed  hotel,  for  his  habitually  fas 
tidious  person  was  bedraggled  with  gore  and  stained  with 
mingled  dust  and  sweat.  It  would  involve  explanations, 
and  embarrassments,  and  lead  in  all  probability  to  still 
deeper  complications.  Then  he  remembered,  after  grop 
ing  his  way  past  the  boiler-room,  that  the  elevator-shaft 
extended  clear  to  the  basement  where  he  stood,  and  this, 
with  the  help  of  a  tip  to  its  operator,  implied  the  chance  of 
being  carried  direct  to  his  floor.  He  had  already  pushed 
the  bell-button  beside  the  iron-grilled  door  when  he 
chanced  to  catch  sight  of  the  narrow  stairway  winding 
upward,  like  a  May-pole  ribbon,  about  the  shaft.  He 
was,  in  fact,  speculating  on  which  of  these  two  possible 
routes  to  follow  when  all  thought  on  the  matter  was  cut 
short  by  the  reappearance  of  Michael  Mullaly. 

Michael,  fortified  by  two  pints  of  beer  and  the  first-aid 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  17 

ministrations  of  his  spouse,  beheld  that  battered  invader 
of  his  own  private  premises  and  advanced  upon  him  with 
out  scruple  and  without  hesitation.  He  had  by  this  time 
recovered  his  wind  and  his  earlier  fixed  pride  in  his  prow 
ess.  And  this  time  he  proposed  to  reap  a  victory  in  no 
way  qualified  by  the  taint  of  petticoated  interference. 

Storrow  watched  that  advance,  watched  it  out  of  a 
studious  and  burning  eye.  He  watched  it  with  resent 
ment,  with  a  hot  wave  of  protest  at  the  injustices  that 
were  being  so  repeatedly  heaped  upon  him.  And  when 
Mullaly  came  for  him  in  what  was  to  be  one  final  taurine 
and  obliterating  rush,  Storrow,  with  his  back  against  the 
grill,  remembered  his  own  battered  knuckles  and  won 
dered  just  how  much  he  could  depend  upon  them.  It 
would  not  last  long,  he  knew.  He  was  already  too  dizzy 
to  endure  many  moments  of  punishment  and  too  unsteady 
on  his  pins  for  that  quick  duck  and  side-step  which  so 
often  eluded  punishment. 

He  gaped  at  the  great  hulk  confronting  him,  foreseeing 
in  his  mind's  eye  that  infuriated  mass  kicking  at  his  fallen 
body.  His  gaze  wandered  aimlessly  over  the  wet  and 
blood-streaked  undershirt.  He  discerned  a  vague  trian 
gular  depression  between  the  tips  of  the  floating-ribs  and 
the  wet  leather  belt.  And  that  discovery  brought  him 
hope.  He  saw,  with  a  flash  of  joy,  that  Mullaly's  fists 
were  poised  high,  forgetful  of  the  sympathetic  ganglia 
with  radiating  nerve-fibers  which  couched  in  that  three- 
sided  depression,  as  sensitive  to  shock  as  a  Sevres  vase 
in  a  wall-niche.  But  he  remembered,  with  even  greater 
joy,  that  this  vulnerable  plexus  lay  behind  a  soft  layer  of 
flesh,  that  impact  against  it  implied  no  vast  injury  to  his 
already  tortured  finger- joints.  So  he  parried  and  feinted 
to  make  sure  of  his  opening  —  for  he  knew  in  his  despera 
tion  there  would  be  only  one  opening.  Then  he  let  his 
clenched  right  jab  out  with  a  piston-stroke,  as  quick  and 
explosive  as  the  back-fire  of  an  engine. 

The  blow  fell  against  the  taut  belly-skin,  fell  as  clean 


i8  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

as  a  wheel-tapper's  hammer  against  its  polished  rim. 
The  solar-plexus,  receiving  that  full  stroke  as  a  percus 
sion-cap  receives  its  trigger-blow,  communicated  its  ex 
plosion  of  sudden  pain  to  the  entire  body  behind  it,  and 
that  body  went  down  with  a  blat  like  a  stunned  steer's. 

It  was  a  knock-out,  a  knock-out  as  clear-cut  and  de 
cisive  as  the  overthrow  of  a  nine-pin.  In  the  murky  shad 
ows  of  a  cellar,  with  no  eyes  to  behold  it,  with  no  audience 
to  applaud  it,  Storrow  belatedly  redeemed  himself  to  his 
own  soul.  There,  in  one  unwitnessed  yet  spectacular 
blow,  he  achieved  his  triumph,  worsted  his  oppressor,  and 
sent  Evil  incarnate  to  earth. 


CHAPTER   TWO 

THAT  fallen  oppressor,  Storrow  remembered, 
could  lay  claim  to  a  helpmate  who  was  both 
active  and  irruptive.  And  he  had  no  wish  to 
remain  there  and  haggle  over  the  fruits  of  victory.  He 
nursed  no  desire  to  face  the  complications  attendant  upon 
the  interference  of  the  softer  sex.  He  opened  the  little 
fire-proofed  door  on  his  right  and  started  up  the  metal- 
paved  stairway  that  took  him  circling  round  and  round 
the  elevator-shaft  until  his  head  was  dizzier  than  ever 
and  his  heart  was  pounding  like  a  trip-hammer.  He  had 
intended  to  count  the  floors  as  he  went.  In  fact,  he  did 
count  them.  But  that  reckoning  could  not  have  been 
as  accurate  as  he  had  imagined,  for  when  he  reached  what 
he  felt  sure  was  his  own  landing  and  had  groped  down 
the  burlap-covered  hall  to  the  rear,  he  found  the  door  that 
should  have  been  his  own  hospitable  door  firmly  locked 
in  his  face.  This,  naturally,  both  bewildered  and  an 
gered  him.  He  shook  and  tugged  at  that  door,  panting, 
feeling  that  he  would  give  all  he  owned  for  one  deep  and 
cooling  drink  of  water,  oppressed  by  the  leaden  thought 
that  the  world  at  large  had  in  some  way  turned  against 
him. 

He  was  still  tugging  and  straining  at  the  unyielding 
brass  knob  when  the  companion  door  on  his  left  was 
thrown  open.  He  neither  turned  nor  looked  up,  at  that 
movement  in  his  immediate  neighbourhood,  since  his  one 
wish,  at  the  moment,  was  for  seclusion.  Yet  he  was  not 
unconscious  of  the  fact  that  from  the  oblong  of  light 
framed  by  the  open  door  he  was  being  quietly  and  stu 
diously  inspected. 

19 


20  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  What's  the  matter  ?  "  asked  a  remarkably  composed 
and  matter-of-fact  voice  out  of  the  prolonged  silence. 

Storrow  turned  slowly  about.  He  saw  a  woman  in 
white,  with  bare  arms  and  shoulders  that  shone  satin- 
like  in  the  strong  side-light.  He  stared  at  her  vacantly, 
for  the  floor  beneath  him  was  now  wavering  like  rails  on 
a  sun-steeped  road-bed.  It  was  several  seconds  before 
he  fully  awakened  to  the  fact  that  it  was  the  same  girl 
who  had  sat  in  the  open  window  drying  her  hair. 

"  Nothing,"  was  his  none  too  gracious  response,  re 
membering  that  he  had  had  quite  enough  of  women  for 
one  day.  Yet  his  aspect  in  general  as  he  put  out  a  hand 
to  steady  himself  against  the  door-frame  caused  the  girl's 
brows  to  come  together  in  a  slight  frown  of  apprehension. 

"  What's  the  matter?  "  she  repeated,  stepping  closer  to 
him. 

"  I  want  to  get  into  my  room,"  he  protested,  shaken 
with  the  humiliation  of  lusty  strength  compelled  to  ac 
knowledge  its  weakness. 

"  This  isn't  your  room,"  she  explained.  "  Yours  must 
be  on  the  floor  above." 

She  was  still  inspecting  him,  with  indecision  in  her 
studious  eyes,  when  a  door  towards  the  front  of  the  nar 
row  hallway  opened  and  the  sound  of  voices  came  to 
them.  She  noticed  the  tendency  of  that  limp  and  woe 
begone  figure  to  shrink  back  into  the  shadow.  She 
seemed  to  understand  his  predicament. 

"  You  can  go  up  by  the  fire-escape,"  she  explained  as 
she  piloted  him  in  through  the  open  door  and  swung  it 
shut  with  her  heel.  Then  she  turned  and  stared  at  him, 
in  the  full  light  from  the  still  open  window.  His  ap 
pearance  seemed  to  frighten  her. 

"  You  are  hurt !  "  she  gasped  in  a  throaty  and  imper 
sonal  coo  of  surprise.  It  meant  no  more  than  her  hand 
clasp  on  his  arm.  "  You're  simply  covered  with  blood !  " 

He  put  a  hand  up  to  his  lip.  It  was  sore  and  swollen, 
and  bleeding  slowly,  stubbornly,  oozing  drop  by  drop. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  21 

"  It's  not  that! "  he  tried  to  explain. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked. 

Instead  of  answering  her  he  lifted  a  hand  to  his  still 
throbbing  head.  It  seemed  too  big  for  his  body,  too 
heavy  to  hold  up. 

"  Yes,  I  saw  it,"  she  said  with  a  gesture  more  of  com 
prehension  than  of  indignation. 

"  It  makes  me  a  little  dizzy  —  the  same  as  when  you're 
sea-sick  —  when  you  want  to  get  flat  on  your  back,"  he 
explained,  oppressed  by  the  meagreness  of  the  sympathy 
in  her  studious  and  abstracted  eyes.  Then  he  remem 
bered  that  he  was  very  thirsty.  He  looked  anxiously 
about  to  see  if  there  was  any  water  in  sight. 

The  girl  at  his  side  misread  that  movement. 

"  You're  not  going  to  faint,  are  you?  "  she  asked  with 
a  sudden  quaver  in  her  voice.  And  without  even  wait 
ing  for  his  answer  she  slipped  her  bare  arm  about  his 
waist,  as  though  determined  to  hold  him  up.  She 
scarcely  came  to  his  shoulder,  he  noticed.  But  she 
guided  him,  very  much  as  a  nurse  guides  a  child,  across 
the  room  to  a  wide  couch-bed  covered  with  an  imitation 
Turkish  tapestry.  She  slipped  a  hand  under  his  shoul 
der,  arching  back  her  body  to  sustain  his  weight  as  he 
went  down. 

He  had  no  intention  of  fainting.  But  he  was  glad 
enough  to  close  his  eyes  for  a  minute  or  two  as  his  head 
sank  back  on  a  thick  sofa-pillow  which  smelt  slightly  of 
house-dust.  He  could  feel  her  breath  fanning  his  neck. 
She  was  actually  unknotting  his  scarf  and  unbuttoning 
his  wilted  and  sodden  collar. 

"  Could  you  give  me  a  drink  of  water?  "  he  asked,  re 
membering  the  fire-escape  and  the  fact  that  it  led  to  his 
own  room.  And  it  was  solitude,  he  also  remembered, 
that  he  had  been  in  search  of. 

She  left  him,  and  slipped  across  the  room,  with  her 
loose  slipper-heels  clacking  after  her.  Storrow  could 
hear  the  hiss  of  tap- water  through  the  bath-room 


22  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

door,  and  the  not  unpleasant  clack  of  the  returning 
slipper-heels.  He  raised  himself  on  his  elbow  and  took 
the  glass  from  her  hand.  The  water  it  held  was  tepid  and 
flat-tasting.  But  he  drank  it  to  the  last  drop. 

He  felt  better,  after  that,  though  the  act  of  swallow 
ing  reminded  him  of  his  hurt  lip,  painful  against  the  glass- 
edge.  And  that,  in  turn,  made  him  think  of  his  head, 
which  still  throbbed.  So  with  a  cautious  forefinger  he 
explored  along  the  side  of  his  skull,  where  the  coal-shovel 
had  raised  a  lump  like  a  poached  egg.  He  was  staring 
somewhat  ruefully  at  his  bruised  and  tender  knuckles 
when  the  girl  came  back  from  the  bathroom  with  a  bowl 
of  hot  water  and  a  moistened  towel  in  her  hand. 

"  Hold  still  a  moment,"  she  quietly  commanded.  She 
was  stooping  over  him,  the  next  moment,  carefully  wiping 
the  dust-stained  and  blood-smeared  face. 

It  struck  Storrow  as  being  slightly  ridiculous,  but  he 
submitted,  with  his  eyes  closed.  It  was  not  until  she 
transferred  her  ministrations  to  his  bruised  finger-joints 
that  he  opened  his  eyes,  watching  her  abstractedly  as  she 
just  as  abstractedly  went  on  with  her  work. 

It  occurred  to  him,  for  the  first  time,  that  it  was  dis 
tinctly  pleasureable,  having  a  quiet-eyed  and  soft-handed 
woman  bathing  his  blood-clotted  knuckles.  She  was  the 
first  white  woman,  he  remembered,  that  he  had  talked  to 
in  any  way  intimately  during  the  past  eighteen  long 
weeks.  Over  four  months  in  the  open,  with  nothing  but 
squaws  and  slatternly  frontier  breeds  before  his  eyes,  had 
left  him  with  a  vague  hunger  for  womanly  beauty  which 
his  impersonal  wanderings  about  a  new  and  unknown 
city  had  done  little  to  appease.  It  was  a  hunger  which 
tended  to  throw  romance  about  the  rustle  of  a  skirt, 
wayward  and  dusky  loveliness  into  the  accidental  shadows 
of  a  hair-coil.  It  was  a  hunger  which  prompted  him,  mo 
mentarily  unmindful  of  bruised  body  and  soul  alike,  to 
lift  his  eyes  and  study  the  face  bending  so  close  over 
his  own. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  23 

His  eye  for  form  was  quick  and  true,  though  his  colour- 
sense,  on  the  other  hand,  was  subsidiary  and  sometimes 
even  defective.  The  first  thing  he  noticed  was  her  hair, 
which  seemed  over-heavy  for  the  head  it  crowned.  It 
was  neither  fine  nor  coarse,  and  was  remarkable  primarily 
for  its  mass.  Equally  heavy  were  the  black  fringes  of 
the  thickly  planted  lashes,  which  made  the  abstracted 
grey-green  eyes  darker-looking  than  they  really  were. 
In  the  meditative  outlook  of  these  eyes  was  a  sense  of 
woodland  coolnesses,  contradicted  in  turn  by  the  ador 
able  outline  of  the  straight  short  nose  and  the  over-full 
upper  lip  which  left  a  somewhat  incongruous  impression 
of  child-like  poutiness  upon  her  face.  The  lips  them 
selves  were  so  fullblooded  that  Storrow  with  his  uncer 
tain  eye  for  colour  might  have  called  them  a  watermelon- 
red,  a  red  that  would  have  been  over-vivid  except  for  the 
perpetual  sense  of  moisture  about  their  heavy  curves. 
There  was  a  touch  of  softness  about  the  yielding  oval 
of  the  chin  which  so  strangely  opposed  the  coolness  of 
the  wide  brow  and  the  habitual  air  of  meditation  marking 
the  upper  part  of  the  face.  The  drooping  mass  of  the 
Indian-like  hair,  he  noticed,  left  the  column  of  her  neck 
almost  marble-like  in  the  modified  room-light.  His  eye, 
trained  in  the  study  of  form  and  line  to  its  minutest 
particularity,  made  note  of  the  fact  that  there  were  no 
veins  showing  in  the  flesh  of  her  arms  and  shoulders, 
where  the  blood-vessels  seemed  as  deep-seated  as  though 
covered  by  the  finest  of  pebbled  kid.  On  one  shoulder, 
just  below  the  collar-bone,  he  noticed  a  scar,  and  won 
dered  what  could  have  caused  it.  Yet  for  the  second 
time  he  was  impressed  by  the  compactness  of  the  thick 
though  far  from  ponderous  body,  a  sense  of  solidity 
which  made  him  think  of  marble.  He  tried  to  tell  him 
self  that  this  was  due  to  the  milk-like  texture  of  the  skin, 
from  which  the  customary  blue  pencillings  of  the  veins 
wrere  absent.  Then,  as  she  raised  one  arm  to  push  back 
her  hair,  the  suggestion  of  statuary  was  heightened  by 


24  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

the  discovery  that  the  arm-pit  was  without  hair,  as  smooth 
as  a  child's.  This  puzzled  him  even  more  than  the  scar 
on  the  milk-white  shoulder,  abashing  him  by  a  quick 
consciousness  of  nudity  which  he  found  it  hard  to  ex 
plain.  And  as  she  looked  up,  awakening  to  the  fact 
of  his  scrutiny,  he  barricaded  himself,  as  it  were,  behind 
his  quickly  shut  eyes. 

"Is  that  better?"  she  asked  as  she  sat  back  with  a 
sigh  and  wiped  a  fine  dewing  of  moisture  from  her 
temples.  Storrow,  opening  his  eyes  to  this  movement, 
remembered  that  it  was  an  oppressively  hot  day.  And 
the  sun,  he  could  see  through  the  open  window,  was  al 
ready  well  down  beyond  the  house-tops. 

Then  his  eyes  followed  the  girl  as  she  crossed  to  her 
dressing-table.  On  this  table  he  could  see  toilet-article:- 
of  cut-glass  and  silver,  an  alcohol-lamp,  a  pair  of  electric 
curling-irons,  a  folding  leather  travelling  clock.  She 
picked  up  a  tiny  porcelain  jar  and  returned  to  his  side. 
The  next  moment  the  cool  tip  of  her  finger  was  smearing 
some  sort  of  ointment  on  his  battered  lip. 

"  Does  it  hurt  ?  "  she  abstractedly  asked.  He  shook 
his  head  in  negation,  submitting  solemnly,  almost  con 
tentedly,  to  the  tempered  pressure.  Her  stooping  figure, 
in  that  paling  and  mildly  diffused  light,  merged  into  a 
soft  and  shadowy  mysteriousness  which  translated  each 
tone  and  accident  of  modelling  into  something  momen 
tous.  It  struck  him  as  odd  that  he  had  been  so  slow 
to  discover  the  sheer  physical  appeal  of  that  figure,  since 
the  discovery  of  such  things  was  supposed  to  be  his  first 
business  in  life.  She  too  was  examining  his  face  with  a 
new  and  less  impersonal  interest. 

"  How  did  you  ever  get  so  sunburned?"  she  asked  as 
she  stared  down  at  his  uncovered  neck. 

"  In  the  North  Woods,"  he  told  her. 

"  The  North  Woods  ?  "  she  repeated,  plainly  not  under 
standing  what  he  meant. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  25 

"  I've  been  up  north  of  Abbitibi  studying  my  subjects," 
he  explained. 

"  Studying  your  subjects?  "  she  echoed,  still  at  sea. 

"Studying  wild-life  —  animals  and  Indians  and  that 
sort  of  thing." 

"  Do  you  mean  you're  an  artist  ?  " 

He  shook  his  head.  "  I'm  only  trying  to  be  one.  I've 
been  modelling  in  clay  a  little." 

"  You  mean  you're  a  sculptor?  "  she  asked,  wondering 
why  he  should  seem  so  reluctant  to  acknowledge  it. 

Again  he  shook  his  head.  "  I  want  to  learn  to  be 
one,"  he  told  her.  "  I've  only  been  —  been  in  New  York 
for  about  a  week." 

She  sat  back,  with  her  heavy  brows  slightly  knitted, 
studying  his  face. 

"What  makes  you  want  to  do  that  sort  of  thing?" 
she  finally  inquired. 

"  It's  what  I've  been  doing  for  over  two  years,"  he 
found  the  courage  to  acknowledge.  It  even  took  an  ef 
fort  to  keep  from  adding  that  his  Chippewa  Chief,  re 
cast  in  bronze,  stood  against  the  north  wall  of  the  Cha 
teau  Laurier  rotunda  in  Ottawa  and  that  his  Wounded 
Moose  held  a  place  of  qualified  honour  in  Toronto's 
public  library.  But  he  nursed  the  modest  man's  aver 
sion  to  explaining  himself.  He  was  thinking,  at  the 
moment,  how  panther-like  were  the  movements  of  her 
body,  with  all  that  smooth  heaviness  about  its  slender- 
ness,  that  persistent,  almost  feline  muscular  sturdiness 
masked  by  its  flowing  grace  of  line. 

"  But  how  can  you  make  statues  of  wild  animals  here 
in  New  York  ?  "  she  meditatively  inquired.  She  was  sit 
ting  on  the  edge  of  the  couch  now,  as  unconscious  of  self 
as  though  she  were  talking  from  a  car-seat. 

"  I  didn't  come  for  that,"  he  explained.  "  I  came  down 
here  to  study.  I've  an  order  for  a  statue  of  Tecumseh, 
from  a  Western  Ontario  park-committee.  It's  to  be  in 


26  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

bronze,  life  size.  But  I've  never  done  anything  like  that, 
and  Arthur  Loring,  the  animal  artist  I  worked  with  all 
last  winter  in  Toronto,  couldn't  help  me  out.  He  ad 
vised  me  to  come  to  New  York,  even  though  I  had  to  be 
gin  at  the  Art  League  and  work  up,  until  I  saw  the 
chance  to  get  in  with  one  of  the  bigger  men  —  with 
Brainard  or  Modrynski,  if  I  could." 

She  was  the  first  woman,  in  that  city  of  multitudinous 
unknown  faces,  who  had  betrayed  the  slightest  interest 
in  him  or  his  existence,  though  she  was  less  impressed  by 
his  explanations  of  himself  than  he  had  expected.  It 
even  startled  him  a  little  when  she  repeated  the  name 
"  Modrynski  "  in  a  tone  of  quiet  contempt. 

"  You  know  him  ?  "  asked  Storrow. 

"  I  know  what  he  is,"  retorted  the  girl  with  a  slight 
upward  thrust  of  one  bare  shoulder.  Then,  to  his  dis 
appointment,  she  veered  away  from  the  subject,  as  though 
it  were  an  issue  distasteful  to  her.  "  But  I  can't  imagine 
you  ever  settling  down  into  one  of  those  studio-rats," 
she  averred,  once  more  studying  him  \vith  her  abstracted 
eyes. 

"  Why  not?  "  he  demanded,  with  a  quick  touch  of  re 
sentment. 

Instead  of  answering  him  she  continued  to  gaze  down 
at  him  with  that  mild  and  meditative  stare,  as  intimate 
and  explorative  as  through  window-glass.  What  she 
saw  was  a  large-boned  youth  with  coppery-brown  hair, 
clipped  close,  yet  not  short  enough  to  conceal  the  crisp 
kink  in  its  fibre.  She  saw  a  man,  still  young,  who  looked 
very  much  as  an  intellectualized  lumber-jack  might  have 
looked,  with  a  skin  burned  brown  by  sun  and  wind,  with 
a  thick  neck,  thick-shouldered  body,  lean  jaw,  square 
teeth  as  white  as  a  hound's,  and  a  slightly  rebellious 
mouth  made  more  so  by  the  heaviness  of  its  cut  and 
swollen  lip.  The  hands  were  not  an  artist's  hands,  but 
were  wide  and  muscular,  brown  as  a  Mexican's,  with 
heavy-sinewed  fingers.  It  was  only  the  eyes  and  the 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  27 

upper  part  of  the  face,  she  saw,  that  tended  to  reclaim 
the  figure  from  the  merely  physical.  For  the  eyes,  with 
their  irises  of  Prussian  blue,  were  as  soft  as  a  woman's 
yet  redeemed  from  effeminacy  by  an  expression  of  un 
satisfied  hunger  which  apparently  she  found  it  no  easy 
matter  to  decipher.  Certain  bony  convolutions  of  the 
temples,  too,  gave  him  an  air  of  Hamlet-like  meditative- 
ness,  of  aloofness  from  the  merely  physical,  of  specula 
tive  other-worldliness  which  the  eager  light  in  the  Prus 
sian  blue  eyes  was  apt  to  translate  into  wistfulness.  Yet 
her  final  impression  of  him,  oddly  enough,  was  not  men 
tal  but  physical,  an  impression  of  hard  muscles  and 
clean-cut  lines  and  as  yet  unexhausted  animal  spirits, 
with  a  purely  animal  pensiveness  in  their  moments  of 
idleness.  But  most  of  all  she  was  struck  by  the  vague 
untamed  eagerness  of  the  man,  an  eagerness  which 
seemed  always  absent  from  the  men  of  the  city  as  she 
had  encountered  them.  He  was  something  as  new  to 
her  as  one  of  his  wild  animals  out  of  the  woods  might 
have  been. 

Yet  whatever  appeal  he  may  have  held  for  her,  he 
at  the  same  time  held  that  which  was  subliminally  dis 
turbing.  She  turned  away  from  him  and  picked  up 
a  slipper  that  had  dropped  from  her  bare  heel.  Then 
abstractedly  crossing  the  room  and  taking  a  pair  of  silk 
stockings  from  her  trunk-top,  she  sat  down  on  a  chair 
and  began  pulling  them  on.  There  seemed  something 
dismissive  in  the  movement,  something  which  brought 
the  man  on  the  couch  to  his  feet. 

"  I  guess,"  he  said  awkwardly,  sharing  her  sudden 
emergence  from  the  impersonal,  "  I  guess  I'd  better  be 
getting  up  that  fire-escape." 

Yet  he  hesitated,  at  a  loss  as  to  how  he  should  phrase 
his  parting  message.  He  was  thinking,  in  fact,  of  the 
sexlessness  of  her  actions  as  she  leaned  forward  there  in 
her  boyish  and  abandoned  pose,  silently  pulling  on  the 
stockings  of  thin  silk.  He  stood  still  watching  her  as 


28  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

she  stamped  and  shook  down  her  white  skirt  with  a 
strangely  doe-like  movement.  He  wondered  what  lay 
behind  that  divorce  from  sex-consciousness,  asking  him 
self  if  it  was  mere  unconcern,  or  due  to  some  indurating 
discipline  that  had  stripped  life  of  both  its  falseness  and 
its  fineness.  She  detected  that  meditative  look  in  his  eye 
and  her  forehead  was  tinged  by  a  faint  wave  of  colour 
ing  which  he  found  it  hard  to  account  for. 

'  You're  blaming  me  for  all  this,"  she  began,  and 
then  broke  off. 

"  No,  I  ought  to  thank  you  for  it,"  he  said  with  more 
warmth  than  he  had  intended. 

Her  answer,  whatever  it  might  have  been,  was  cut 
short  by  the  sound  of  a  knock  on  the  door  behind  them. 
Their  eyes  met. 

He  seemed  to  understand  her  silent  message.  He 
climbed,  a  little  stiff  and  heavy,  out  on  the  fire-escape 
landing.  Then  he  went  slowly  up  the  rusty  iron  steps 
until  he  came  to  his  own  open  window. 

Before  that  open  window  he  stopped  short.  For  in 
the  familiar-looking  room,  the  room  which  he  still  re 
garded  as  his,  he  beheld  a  strange  figure,  as  unexpected 
as  it  was  arresting.  It  was  the  figure  of  a  stout  but  ex 
tremely  tired-looking  woman  engaged  in  the  act  of  draw 
ing  on  a  negligee. 

He  stared,  slightly  incredulous,  at  the  faded  walls  and 
the  worn  drab  rug,  the  authenticating  broken  rocker, 
the  only  too  well-remembered  bed  of  corroded  brass  rods, 
on  which  a  hat  and  an  open  travelling  bag  now  reposed. 

Then  the  truth  of  the  situation  seeped  through  to  his 
brain.  A  new  guest  had  already  been  assigned  to  the 
room,  to  the  room  from  which  his  own  belongings  had 
so  recently  been  sent.  And  the  moist  and  determined 
jaw  of  that  weary-eyed  guest  made  it  easy  for  him  to 
dramatize  uncomfortable  contingencies  which  might 
arise  from  her  discovery  of  him  at  that  open  window. 
So  he  drew  back,  started  down  the  rusty  iron  steps  again, 


29 

and  then  came  to  a  stop.  He  remembered  the  knock  on 
the  door,  and  for  the  second  time  was  able  to  dramatize 
contingencies  that  were  anything  but  palatable. 

Yet  it  was  necessary  to  choose  one  of  those  two  ave 
nues  of  escape,  and  he  preferred  the  lower  one.  His  ap 
proach  to  the  window  beneath  him,  however,  was  as 
guarded  as  he  was  able  to  make  it.  But  still  again  he  was 
arrested,  this  time  by  the  sound  of  a  quick  and  angry 
voice. 

"  So  long  as  I  pay  for  this  room,  it's  mine,"  he  heard 
the  girl  call  out  in  incredibly  hardened  tones,  "  and  I'll  do 
what  I  like  in  it!  " 

The  reply  to  that  challenge  was  so  low  that  Storrow 
failed  to  catch  it.  All  he  knew  was  that  it  was  a  man 
speaking,  a  man  who  was  angry  but  still  in  control  of 
himself. 

"  You  dare  to  carry  any  tale  like  that  down  to  the 
office !  "  the  flattened  girlish  voice  once  more  flung  out. 
"Just  try  it!" 

"  I  suppose  that's  why  you  hang  out  in  a  dump  like 
this,"  the  man's  tremulous  voice  retorted. 

"  It's  none  of  your  business  where  I  hang  out,"  was 
the  counter-retort.  "  And  the  sooner  you  get  out  of 
this  room  the  better  it'll  suit  me !  " 

Storrow  judged,  by  the  sound  of  her  receding  voice, 
that  the  girl  was  crossing  to  the  door  and  opening  it. 

"You  know  what  you'll  pay  for  this,  Torrie?"  chal 
lenged  the  deeper  voice,  still  shaking  a  little,  shot  through 
with  a  feeling  that  seemed  deeper  than  anger. 

"That's  my  own  affair!" 

The  other's  reply  to  this  did  not  reach  Storrow's  ear. 

"  I  don't  care  what  you  do  with  your  part,  or  your 
production,  or  your  own  oily  carcase.  I'm  sick  of  the 
whole  combination!  I'm  through!  Isn't  that  plain 
enough  for  you  to  understand?  I'm  through!" 

This  was  followed  by  a  moment  of  unbroken  silence. 
Then  came  the  sound  of  a  step  crossing  the  floor,  sue- 


30  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

ceeded  by  the  pregnantly  thunderous  slam  of  a  door  in 
the  hot  evening  air. 

Storrow,  in  the  ensuing  silence,  moved  slowly  back 
from  the  open  window.  He  stood  on  the  iron  grating, 
uncertain  what  to  do,  reluctant  to  re-enter  that  arena  of 
noisy  combat.  He  was  still  there,  debating  the  uninvit 
ing  alternative  of  running  the  blockade  of  the  serried  win 
dows  that  stood  between  him  and  the  basement  area, 
when  the  discoloured  lace  curtain  was  pushed  aside  and 
the  girl's  face  suddenly  appeared,  within  three  feet  of  his 
own.  She  was  obviously  startled  to  find  him  there,  but 
that  minor  bewilderment  was  soon  immersed  in  the  bigger 
waves  of  anger  still  surging  through  her. 

"  You  heard  that?  "  she  asked,  after  a  moment  of  sil 
ent  staring  out  through  the  open  window.  She  spoke 
with  assumed  unconcern,  but  there  was  recklessness  be 
neath  it. 

"  I  couldn't  help  hearing  some  of  it,"  Storrow  ac 
knowledged,  by  this  time  the  more  uncomfortable  of  the 
two.  "  I  —  I  hadn't  intended  to." 

The  apologetic  note  in  his  voice  seemed  to  puzzle  her. 
She  looked  at  him  with  clearing  eyes.  Then  she  laughed 
a  little,  though  still  with  a  touch  of  recklessness. 

"  We  both  seem  to  be  having  our  troubles  today," 
she  said,  with  a  listless  push  at  her  tumbled  crown  of 
hair. 

"  I'm  afraid  I've  been  the  cause  of  yours,"  he  dep 
recated.  He  made  note  of  her  upward  glance  towards 
what  had  once  been  his  own  window.  He  forced  a  laugh, 
to  make  light  of  his  predicament. 

"  Oh,  I'm  barred  out  up  there.  They  thought  I'd 
given  up  my  room;  they've  put  a  woman  in  it." 

She  noticed  his  movement  as  he  lifted  his  sodden  hand 
kerchief  up  to  his  mouth,  for  his  grimace  of  forced  mirth 
had  started  his  bruised  lip  bleeding  again.  Her  face  grew 
suddenly  serious.  She  did  not  speak.  But,  after  a  mo 
ment  or  two  of  meditation,  she  held  the  soiled  curtain 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  31 

back.  It  was  clearly  a  signal  for  him  to  come  in  through 
the  window.  His  hesitation  did  not  escape  her. 

"Are  you  afraid?"  she  demanded. 

"  Not  for  myself,"  he  explained. 

'Then  for  what?" 

"  For  you,"  he  protested.  But  even  as  he  spoke  he 
lowered  himself  in  through  the  window. 

"  The  worst  has  happened,"  she  said  with  acidulated 
levity.  He  noticed,  the  next  moment,  that  she  was  point 
ing  towards  his  wilted  collar  and  tie,  still  resting  on  her 
dresser  top.  "  He  saw  those!  " 

"  Who  saw  them?  "  asked  Storrow,  colouring  in  spite 
of  himself. 

'  That  man  Krassler,"  she  said  with  a  shrug. 

"  But  who  is  Krassler?  " 

"  He's  the  man  who  was  just  up  here  trying  to  pre 
sume  on  his  privileges." 

"  His  privileges?  "  repeated  Storrow. 

"  He's  a  third-rate  producer  who  seems  to  think  I 
ought  to  kaitow  to  him  because  he's  promised  me  a  part 
in  one  of  his  third-rate  plays,"  was  her  apparently  dif 
fident  answer.  "  But  there  were  a  few  plain  truths  com 
ing  to  him  —  and  I  guess  he  got  them." 

"Then  you're  —  you're  an  actress?"  ventured  Stor 
row,  with  a  stress  on  that  all-explanatory  word  which 
she  seemed  to  resent. 

"  About  as  much  as  you're  a  sculptor,"  she  retorted, 
by  way  of  punishment  for  that  demonstrated  provincial 
interpretation  of  her  calling.  Then  as  she  fanned  her 
self  with  a  ragged-edged  palm-leaf  she  explained  that 
she  had  been  in  musical  comedy  for  the  last  two  seasons. 
She  had  "  worked  "  her  first  year  in  an  English  pony- 
chorus,  and  then  had  a  "  show-girl  "  part  in  The  Rialto 
Widow,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  summer  was  doing 
an  eccentric  dance  in  The  Grapevine  Girls  when  she 
slipped  and  broke  her  ankle.  It  broke  with  a  sound  like 
a  pistol-shot,  she  told  him,  and  they  had  to  carry  her 


32  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  off/'  It  had  laid  her  up  nearly  all  summer,  and  she  had 
been  stifling  there  for  two  months,  with  the  city  as  empty 
as  a  wilderness.  And  it  was  that  man  Krassler,  as  much 
as  anything,  who  had  kept  her  waiting  there,  for  he  had 
promised  her  a  speaking  part  in  The  Silent  Singer  —  and 
now  the  whole  applecart  was  over. 

"  But  there  are  other  chances,  aren't  there  ?  "  asked 
Storrow,  oppressed  by  the  embittered  undercurrent  of 
her  flippancy. 

"  I  suppose  so,"  was  her  listless  retort.  "  But  I  can't 
go  back  to  dancing,  even  if  I  wanted  to.  And  I  won't  go 
back  to  the  chorus.  And  it's  not  easy,  in  the  legitimate, 
until  you've  shown  them  you've  got  it  in  you." 

It  was  all  a  new  world  to  the  man  from  the  North,  but 
he  acknowledged,  perfunctorily,  that  he  understood.  She 
couldn't  help  succeeding,  he  repeated  to  himself,  as  he 
studied  her.  Yet  that  compactly  modelled  body  was  less 
of  an  enigma  to  him  now,  since  the  root  of  its  mysterious 
sexlessness  had  been  laid  bare  to  him.  That  was  some 
thing  peculiar  to  her  profession,  he  remembered,  the  same 
as  with  athletes,  or  with  models,  or  with  children  still 
in  their  careless  age  of  innocence. 

"  Waiting's  about  the  hardest  work  you  can  do,  isn't 
it?  "  she  asked  him.  He  did  not  answer  her  at  once,  for 
he  was  watching  the  undulatory  small  movements  of  her 
shoulders  as  she  slipped  into  a  rose-coloured  kimono.  It 
was  not  until  she  snapped  on  the  electric-lights,  at  each 
side  of  her  dresser,  that  he  noticed  the  garment  to  be 
both  faded  and  threadbare.  She  paused,  after  a  perfunc 
tory  dab  at  her  face  with  a  powder-puff,  and  looked  at 
him  over  her  shoulder. 

"  You're  hungry,  aren't  you?"  she  asked.  There  was 
appeal  in  the  easy  companionability  of  that  question. 

"  No,"  he  acknowledged.  "  But  I  am  thirsty.  I  could 
drink  a  gallon !  " 

She  crossed  to  the  telephone  and  sent  an  order  for 
ice-water  down  to  the  office.  Then  she  set  up  a  small 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  33 

collapsible  table,  spread  a  fresh  towel  across  its  top,  and 
lifted  the  lid  of  the  steel-bound  Taylor  trunk  on  the  far 
side  of  the  room.  From  this  trunk  she  took  out  a  tin 
box  of  biscuits,  a  marmalade- jar,  and  a  pot  of  cream 
cheese.  When  the  bell-boy  arrived  with  the  ice-water, 
she  met  him  at  the  door  with  her  stoneware  pitcher,  with 
a  careless  "  Thank  you,  Jake  "  as  the  broken  ice  rattled 
from  its  granite  container.  Then  she  shut  the  door  and 
locked  it. 

"  Don't  drink  that,"  she  said,  intercepting  Storrow  as 
he  stepped  forward  to  take  the  pitcher  from  the  table. 
She  crossed  to  the  bathroom  and  produced  two  tumblers, 
which  she  wiped  on  a  face-towel.  She  next  appeared 
with  a  bottle  wrapped  in  a  wet  cloth,  a  bottle  not  unlike  an 
Indian  club  in  shape.  The  care  with  which  she  handled 
this  piqued  Storrow's  curiosity  as  her  fingers  lifted  bits 
of  broken  ice  from  the  pitcher  and  dropped  them  into  the 
glasses. 

"  I've  two  of  these  left  from  Pannie  At  will's  party," 
she  explained  as  she  took  up  the  bottle  again,  unswathed 
it,  twisted  the  lead-foil  from  its  neck  and  inserted  a  but 
tonhook  under  its  wiring.  Then  with  her  strong  white 
fingers  she  began  working  at  the  cork,  turning  the  bottle 
about  as  she  pushed  on  its  swollen  cap. 

The  liquid  from  the  opened  bottle  bubbled  pleasantly 
as  it  was  poured  into  the  tumblers. 

"  This'll  be  better  for  you  than  water."  the  bare-armed 
girl  assured  her  visitor. 

That  visitor,  as  he  took  the  still  bubbling  glass  from 
her  fingers,  remembered  that  he  had  very  seldom  drunk 
such  stuff.  As  a  boy  once  at  a  county-fair  he  had  made 
himself  very  sick  by  taking  too  much  bottled  ale.  That 
had  left  him  with  a  vague  aversion  to  alcohol  in  any  form, 
but  he  had  held  aloof  from  it  chiefly  for  the  reason  that 
he  had  never  felt  the  need  of  it.  His  unjaded  sense  of 
well-being  had  never  called  for  any  such  lash.  So  he 
stared  down  at  the  warm  amber  liquid  in  which  the  last 


34  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

of  the  ice  had  disappeared,  stared  down  at  it  without 
either  appetite  or  enthusiasm.  Then  he  remembered  that 
it  was  wet,  and  that  his  throat  was  dry. 

He  had  gulped  down  a  half-glass  of  it,  scarcely  con 
scious  of  its  tepidity,  when  he  noticed  that  the  girl  who 
had  seated  herself  across  the  table  from  him  was  sip 
ping  her  glass  fastidiously,  like  a  bird  drinking  from  a 
fountain-rim,  and  he  blushed  at  the  thought  of  what  must 
have  seemed  grossness  on  his  part.  She  stopped,  sober- 
eyed,  at  his  sudden  movement  of  repudiation. 

"  It  even  spoils  champagne,  doesn't  it,  having  to  take 
it  like  that?"  she  observed  with  a  glance  at  the  thick- 
glassed  tumbler. 

But  it  had  not  altogether  spoiled  the  wine  for  Storrow. 
It  made  him  think  of  warm  apple-cider,  and  caused  his 
nose  to  sting,  but  the  effect,  on  the  whole,  was  much  more 
pleasureable  than  he  had  expected.  He  noticed,  as  he 
finished  his  glass  with  more  tempered  gulps,  that  it  was 
bringing  a  faint  tingle  into  his  finger-tips  and  a  steady 
but  not  unpleasant  throb  to  the  poached-egg  lump  along 
the  side  of  his  head.  He  became  conscious  of  a  faint 
singing  in  his  ears,  such  as  he  had  heard  about  a  bee-hive 
on  a  sunny  afternoon.  Then  he  remembered  that  the 
things  which  he  had  so  recently  accepted  as  misfortunes 
were  in  some  way  touched  with  humour,  if  one  only 
looked  at  them  in  the  right  light.  The  world,  after  all, 
was  a  pretty  rosy  place  to  live  in,  only  there  were  certain 
things,  certain  tremendously  vital  things,  which  he  must 
explain  to  the  girl  across  the  table  from  him. 

He  sat  there,  big  with  a  desire  to  talk,  yet  with  the 
habit  of  a  life-time  shouldering  him  back  into  his  Scotch 
mist  of  reticence.  He  seemed  satisfied  to  watch  the 
white-skinned  girl  moving  about  behind  a  thin  veil  of 
mystery.  That  newer  mood  of  his  seemed  to  give  a 
warmer  red  to  her  lips.  It  threw  a  softer  glimmer  about 
the  satiny  white  skin,  a  new  music  in  the  sound  of  her 
voice,  which  at  times  seemed  to  come  to  him  from  a 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  35 

great  distance  and  then  again  to  be  confidentially  close  to 
his  ear,  so  that  it  mingled  musically  with  the  sunny  after 
noon  beehive  singing. 

His  second  glass,  as  they  began  to  eat,  gave  him  a 
courage  which  was  almost  a  puzzle  to  him.  He  wondered 
why  his  companion  should  remain  so  quiet-eyed,  so  un 
disturbed  by  the  liquid  miracle  which  was  sending  music 
through  all  his  veins.  She  leaned  over,  cool-handed,  to 
empty  the  last  of  the  bottle  into  his  tumbler. 

"  What  made  that  scar?"  he  suddenly  asked,  looking 
at  her  bare  shoulder.  She  drew  in  her  chin,  with  a  side- 
twist  of  the  head  that  brought  creases  in  the  satiny  neck- 
skin,  and  glanced  down  at  the  scar. 

"Oh,  that!"  she  said. 

"  What  made  it  ?  "  he  repeated. 

"  I  let  a  hot  curling-iron  fall  there." 

It  seemed  a  deep  scar,  from  so  trivial  a  cause. 
Swayed  by  an  impulse  which  was  still  impersonal,  he 
reached  out  and  ran  an  explorative  finger  along  that 
blemish  on  so  perfect  a  plane.  Many  a  time,  in  much 
the  same  manner,  he  has  thumbed  a  roughness  out  of  his 
modelling  clay.  It  surprised  him  to  find  how  cool  and 
firm  her  flesh  was. 

"  Don't  do  that!" 

Her  command  was  so  sharp,  with  a  little  intake  of  the 
breath  as  she  uttered  it,  that  it  startled  him.  She  backed 
away  as  Storrow's  puzzled  glance  rose  to  her  face.  She 
was  still  staring  at  him,  with  slightly  widened  eyes,  as 
she  sank  into  her  chair.  The  two  of  them  sat  there 
in  silence,  for  several  moments,  studying  each  other 
across  the  narrow  table  that  stood  between  them.  Then 
the  girl,  with  a  vague  trouble  on  her  lowered  brow,  re 
sumed  her  eating  of  cheese  and  crackers.  Storrow  did 
the  same,  oddly  sobered,  with  a  more  tempered  drone  of 
music  in  his  ears.  Yet  her  half-diffident  shoulder-shrug, 
as  she  licked  the  cheese-crumbs  from  her  fingers,  did  not 
escape  him. 


36  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  I  can't  help  wondering,"  she  finally  said  as  she  sat 
back  in  her  chair,  "  why  you  don't  do  things  of  real  men 
and  women,  if  you're  going  to  be  a  sculptor.  Haven't 
you  wanted  to  ?  " 

Storrow  seemed  glad  of  that  excursion  into  a  side- 
issue. 

"  Yes ;  but  you  can't  get  models,  in  the  country  I  came 
from,"  he  explained. 

This  seemed  incredible  to  her.  "  There  must  be  mod 
els,"  she  ventured,  "  wherever  there  are  men  and  women." 

"  Not  up  in  Chamboro,"  he  averred. 

"  What's  Chamboro  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  That's  where  I'd  fitted  up  an  old  barn  as  a  studio," 
he  explained  to  her,  spurred  into  candour  by  her  casual 
acceptance  of  such  things,  but  still  thick-tongued  from 
the  beaded  amber  liquid  that  had  come  out  of  the  tumbler 
beside  him.  "  I  wanted  to  do  life  studies.  I  knew  I  had 
to  do  'em.  There  was  a  young  girl  up  there,  a  girl  of 
about  eleven  or  twelve,  half  wild.  I  wanted  to  do  her  in 
clay.  So  I  went  to  her  mother  about  it.  They  were  a 
shiftless  lot,  but  she  was  glad  enough  of  the  money.  Sit 
ting  around  while  I  worked,  though,  seemed  to  get  on 
her  nerves,  so  the  third  day  she  sent  the  youngster  over 
to  my  studio  alone." 

He  laughed  as  he  came  to  a  stop.  But  it  was  not  a 
mirthful  laugh. 

"  What  happened?  "  demanded  the  girl  across  the  table. 

"  A  couple  of  elderly  maiden  ladies  who  were  collecting 
for  the  Social  Purity  League  happened  to  look  in  and  see 
that  youngster  as  I'd  posed  her  there.  She  was  naked,  of 
course,  with  a  side-twist  of  the  skinny  little  torso  that 
made  me  feel  I'd  be  a  second  Robin  if  I  could  only  catch 
it." 

"  Go  on !  "  she  prompted  out  of  the  ensuing  silence. 

"  The  two  maiden-ladies  carried  the  news  of  what 
they'd  seen  in  to  the  village.  Then  about  all  Chamboro 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  37 

came  back.  They  came  in  a  regular  posse.  They  were 
very  foolish  about  it  all." 

"  What'd  they  do  ?  "  she  demanded  as  he  came  to  a 
stop  for  the  second  time. 

"  They  burned  down  the  barn,  for  one  thing.  It  was 
their  original  intention,  I  understand,  to  tar  and  feather 
me  —  but  they  didn't  quite  succeed  in  that.  It  left  me  a 
marked  man,  though,  as  far  as  Chamboro's  concerned. 
So  I  swung  back  to  the  wild-animal  stuff,  and  went  up 
over  the  Height  of  Land,  up  beyond  Abbitibi,  to  study  my 
subjects." 

The  girl  leaned  slightly  forward,  with  one  hand  grasp 
ing  each  side  of  the  table  in  front  of  her,  her  lips  slightly 
parted,  bewilderment  in  her  staring  eyes. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say,"  she  slowly  intoned,  "  that  they 
thought  you'd  done  something  wrong?  " 

He  was  able  to  laugh  at  her  amazement,  an  unmod- 
erated  laugh  in  which  she  was  finally  able  to  join  him. 

"  You  poor  boy!  "  she  said,  suddenly  sobering,  with  a 
hand-movement  towards  him  that  implied  both  pity  and 
comprehension,  abstraction  creeping  into  her  eyes  again 
as  she  meditated  over  what  he  had  just  said  to  her.  It 
seemed  to  give  her  a  great  deal  to  think  over,  for  she  sat 
there  as  motionless  as  a  statue,  for  several  minutes. 
Then,  she  began  to  laugh  again,  easily,  bubblingly,  as 
though  some  hitherto  unperceived  humour  of  his  pre 
dicament  was  slowly  revealing  itself  to  her. 

His  first  impulse  was  to  resent  that  laughter,  feeling 
that  it  was  in  some  way  at  his  expense.  But  the  light  on 
the  upturned  face  was  so  appealing,  the  lines  of  the  red 
mouth  were  so  warm  in  tone,  the  poise  of  the  careless- 
held  body  was  so  nymph-like,  that  he  was  ready  enough 
to  swing  in  with  her  mood  of  merriment.  Then  they 
both  stopped  short,  as  though  demanding  of  themselves  a 
reason  for  laughing. 

"  After  Chamboro,  and  things  like  that,"  she  said  out 


of  that  second  silence,  "  no  wonder  you  were  afraid  oi 
me." 

"  But  I'm  not  afraid  of  you,"  he  contended,  warm  with 
a  wine  that  was  never  poured  from  bottles. 

'  You  were"  she  cried,  more  than  ever  nymph-like. 

"  That  was  only  because  you  seemed  so  beautiful,"  he 
heard  his  own  lips  protesting,  as  he  noticed  for  the  second 
time  that  convulsive  intake  of  the  breath. 

"  Say  that  again,"  she  murmured,  leaning  forward  with 
a  dreamy  intentness  on  her  face. 

It  was  provocative  in  its  sudden  languid  loveliness,  that 
face  which  swayed  before  him  in  a  mist.  He  could  feel 
his  pulses  pound. 

She  seemed  not  altogether  unconscious  of  that  quick 
bodily  conflagration,  for  she  rose  slowly  from  her  chair. 
If  it  had  been  her  intention  to  move  away  from  the  table 
he  arrested  that  movement  by  catching  at  the  hem  of  the 
rose-coloured  kimono  and  swinging  her  about  so  that  she 
faced  him  where  he  sat.  Yet  he  continued  to  sit  there, 
shaking  a  little  as  he  stared  up  into  her  face. 

"Oh,  you  boy!  You  adorable  boy!"  she  cried  out 
with  a  sudden  little  forward  swoop  of  the  body  as  she 
thrust  her  hands  into  the  thick  mat  of  his  crisply-curling 
hair.  It  seemed  almost  an  expression  of  hunger,  more 
a  movement  of  appropriation  than  one  of  surrender,  as 
she  pushed  back  his  face  so  that  she  stared  directly  into  it 
as  she  stood  above  him. 

'  You  are  beautiful,"  he  whispered,  dizzily,  as  he  rose 
to  his  feet  close  beside  her. 

The  movement  freed  his  head  from  her  clasp,  so  that 
her  drooping  hands  rested  on  his  shoulders.  Her  draped 
arm  drooped  closer  about  him,  like  a  wing.  He  was 
conscious,  for  one  misty  moment,  of  a  besieging  artillery 
of  perfumes,  of  her  quick-taken  breath,  of  the  appeal  of 
the  heavy  red  mouth. 

Then  he  caught  her  in  his  arms  with  a  savagery  that 
left  her  suddenly  relaxed  and  heavy-lidded.  He  crushed 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  39 

her  closer  and  still  closer  with  those  uncomprehendingly 
cruel  muscles  and  sinews  that  seemed  made  of  iron.  Yet 
she  clung  to  him,  more  hungrily  than  ever,  as  though  that 
unthinking  physical  cruelty  were  something  to  be  wel 
comed,  and  her  head  sank  back  on  one  upcrowded  shoul 
der,  abandonedly,  as  his  hungering  mouth  sought  and 
found  the  heavy  red  lips.  Time  was  forgotten,  and  the 
world,  and  all  the  past  that  time  had  recorded  upon  its 
troubled  surface.  .  .  . 

Then  time  and  the  world  came  back  to  them,  abruptly, 
with  the  repeated  shrill  of  a  telephone-bell  on  the  far  side 
of  the  room. 

They  opened  their  eyes  as  they  stood  there  still  locked 
together  like  pterodactyls.  In  the  man's  eyes  was  ques 
tioning  bewilderment,  in  the  woman's  a  heavy  and  lan 
guorous  protest.  It  was  the  tension  in  the  man's  arms 
alone  that  relaxed  as  the  shrill  of  the  bell  repeated  itself. 

"  Don't  go,"  she  whispered,  as  he  made  a  movement  as 
though  to  answer  that  call.  She  lifted  her  hand  to  the 
back  of  his  head,  and  bent  his  face  closer  to  her  own. 
And  it  was  her  lips  this  time  which  met  and  clung  to  his. 

He  drew  back  suddenly,  with  alarm  in  his  eyes,  forget 
ful  of  even  the  reiterated  peal  of  the  bell  behind  him. 

"  There's  blood  on  your  face,"  he  gasped,  lifting  his 
hand  to  the  bruised  and  tender  lip  which  he  had  so  com 
pletely  forgotten. 

Her  face,  now  a  dead  white,  looked  almost  grotesque 
with  its  Columbine-like  blotches  of  red. 

"  I  don't  care,"  she  said,  almost  sleepily,  with  her  limp 
hands  trailing  after  him  as  he  drew  still  farther  away. 

Then,  with  a  breath  that  was  both  deep  and  audible, 
she  crossed  slowly  to  the  telephone  and  twisted  a  handker 
chief  about  the  clapper  of  the  still  jangling  bell,  silencing 
it. 

Storrow  watched  her.  He  felt,  as  he  stared  across  the 
faded  room  at  her  in  her  faded  rose  drapery,  that  a  thou 
sand  unseen  masons  were  building  a  thousand-stoned  wall 


40  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

about  him.  He  watched  her  as  she  moved  towards  him 
with  slow  and  meditative  strides.  He  even  fell  slowly 
back,  until  his  shoulders  were  against  the  wall.  She 
smiled,  without  mirth,  at  his  vague  frown  of  protest. 

"  What's  the  use?  "  she  quietly  asked,  as  she  lifted  her 
face  up  to  his. 


CHAPTER   THREE 

OWEN  STORROW,  one  week  later,  was  a  not 
altogether  happy  young  man.  His  misery,  in 
fact,  was  a  two-fold  one.  He  found  himself 
not  only  unhappy  in  his  surroundings  but  even  more  un 
happy  in  his  own  mind.  The  memories  which  he  brought 
into  that  new  environment  were  anything  but  tranquilliz 
ing. 

It  had  been  a  mistake,  he  told  himself,  to  accept  Au 
gusta  Kirkner's  offer  and  establish  his  studio  under  her 
roof.  He  had  come  to  the  wrong  place,  and  in  doing  so 
he  had  come  in  the  wrong  way  and  at  the  wrong  time. 
The  change,  both  the  inner  and  the  outer  one,  had  been 
too  abrupt.  It  had  proved  as  cataclysmically  disturbing 
as  an  earthquake,  involving  too  sharp  a  rupture  of  all 
the  filaments  of  habit  and  association.  It  had  been 
wrench  enough  to  be  deprived,  at  a  stroke,  of  the  rough 
freedom  of  his  woodsman's  life.  But  the  loss  of  that 
primordial  freedom  of  the  body  had  been  followed  by  an 
episode  —  and  in  his  own  mind  Storrow  still  insisted  that 
it  was  merely  an  episode  —  which  gave  every  promise  of 
resulting  in  a  captivity  of  the  soul. 

For  Storrow  looked  back  on  his  last  night  at  The 
Alwyn  Arms  as  a  sort  of  dream,  some  of  it  blurred  in 
outline,  some  of  it  photographic  in  vividness.  He  was 
neither  ascetic  by  instinct  nor  straight-laced  in  his  out 
look  on  the  world.  But  this,  his  first  adventure  along 
that  water-way  of  passion  which  twines  now  silver  and 
now  sullen  across  the  huddled  destinies  of  men,  had  come 
upon  him  too  abruptly  for  consideration.  It  had  seemed 
to  leap  upon  his  shoulders  like  a  wild-cat  from  a  tree- 


42  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

branch.  And  when  the  singing  bees  of  wonder  had  died 
down  in  his  brain  he  had  realized  the  necessity  for  escape. 

The  inevitable  reaction  of  exhaustion  had  come,  the 
ebb-tide  of  emotion  over-taxed.  And  his  haunting  im 
pression  of  being  walled  up  alive  was  still  horrible  to 
him. 

He  had  tried  to  slip  away  as  stealthily  and  guiltily  as 
a  burglar  slips  away  from  the  scene  of  his  crime.  The 
girl  had  stirred  and  wakened.  But  she  had  been  too  tired 
to  pay  much  attention  to  him.  He  had  made  his  escape 
without  speaking  to  her  again,  without  explaining  what 
he  could  scarcely  explain  to  himself.  He  stole  away  with 
an  ache  for  freedom  still  in  his  soul,  with  a  vague  dread 
of  invisible  filaments  weaving  about  him,  with  a  horror 
of  suffocation  which  above  all  things  must  be  fought 
against. 

That  feeling  of  stealth  with  which  he  had  taken  his  de 
parture,  in  fact,  added  materially  to  the  sum  of  his  shame. 
It  had  stayed  with  him  during  his  transit  down  through 
that  still  slumbering  hotel  in  the  early  morning  hours. 
He  had  felt  the  abominable  necessity  of  making  himself 
inconspicuous  to  every  casual  eye.  Even  after  his  escape 
from  that  house  of  tumultuous  and  hectic  memories  he 
found  himself  further  embarrassed,  first  by  the  need  of 
fresh  linen  and  later  by  the  surreptitious  manner  in  which 
this  apparel  had  to  be  purchased.  In  that  Sixth  Avenue 
store  where  he  was  looked  over  with  questioning  eyes  he 
felt  remarkably  like  a  porch-climber  intent  on  a  quick  dis 
guise.  Then  he  had  eaten  heavily,  though  joylessly, 
after  which  he  had  just  as  joylessly  sought  shelter  in  a 
sordid  side-street  hotel,  where  he  went  to  bed  at  a  time 
when  the  rest  of  the  world,  the  honest  world  of  honest 
workers,  was  emerging  to  its  daily  tasks.  He  went  to 
bed  sore  in  body,  exhausted  in  spirit,  with  a  chain  of 
newly-formed  memories  dragging  through  his  brain. 
Even  his  sleep  in  that  small  and  stifling  room  was  shot 
through  with  dreams  of  intertwined  bodies  which  seemed 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  43 

in  some  mysterious  way  associated  with  his  La  Porte  de 
I'Enfer.  And  these  uncontrolled  visions  seemed  to  build 
up  still  wider  horizons  of  shame  about  him,  horizons 
along  which  he  frontiered  in  a  vague  horror  of  homeless- 
ness. 

Then  in  his  waking  hours  he  struggled,  as  youth  must, 
to  reorganize  his  shattered  self-respect.  The  looms  of 
after-thought  busied  themselves  in  weaving  some  essen 
tial  fabric  of  extenuation.  He  told  himself  it  had  all 
come  upon  him  so  suddenly,  so  overwhelmingly,  that  he 
was  little  more  than  a  wayfarer  who  had  stooped  to  drink 
from  a  pool  but  had  wakened  to  find  himself  tumbled 
headlong  into  its  strangling  depths.  And  if  there  had 
been  the  threat  of  strangulation,  he  had  at  least  effected 
his  escape.  He  had  escaped,  he  assured  himself,  because 
escape  had  seemed  to  him  the  only  avenue  to  redemption. 
He  had  thought,  it  was  true,  very  much  more  of  himself 
than  of  anything  he  might  be  leaving  behind  him.  But 
he  had  staggered  back  to  freedom  impressed  with  the 
feeling  that  if  he  nursed  a  wound,  it  was  a  wound  which 
the  ever-healing  hand  of  Time  would  make  less  painful. 

Time,  he  discovered  during  the  next  few  days,  had  in 
deed  made  that  wound  less  painful,  and  therein  lay  a  new 
source  of  distress  to  his  fretful  spirit.  His  feelings,  he 
began  to  find,  were  not  as  simple  as  he  had  striven  to 
make  them.  For  tangled  up  with  regret  was  a  shadowy 
yet  persistent  sense  of  triumph,  of  murkier  distances  that 
had  been  added  to  the  perspective  of  life.  The  vistas  of 
experience  had  been  suddenly  widened,  and  into  those  new 
distance  he  stared  with  slightly  eager  if  unhappy  eyes. 
This  consciousness  that  he  could  even  vaguely  exult  in 
evil,  in  any  black  harvest  of  knowledge  that  was  rooted 
in  wrong,  gave  birth  to  a  later  and  subsidiary  shame  in  his 
breast. 

Then,  as  the  days  dragged  by,  a  new  and  even  more  dis 
turbing  discovery  came  to  him.  He  beheld  memory 
throwing  about  that  strange  last  night  at  The  Alwyn 


44  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

Arms  an  ever  wanner  and  warmer  glow.  As  youth  re 
asserted  its  prerogatives  of  vigour  he  found  himself  go 
ing  back  to  those  scenes  much  less  unwillingly.  He  had 
foolishly  accepted  the  entire  affair  as  something  that  was 
over  and  done  with,  as  something  which  had  been  taken 
out  of  his  life  as  conclusively  as  his  hand-bags  had  been 
carried  out  of  his  surrendered  hotel-room.  It  was  some 
thing  so  episodic,  so  transient,  he  had  argued  with  him 
self,  that  it  would  eventually  leave  neither  mark  nor  mem 
ory.  The  thing  had  been  violent,  he  kept  assuring  him 
self,  and  its  own  violence  had  already  shaken  it  to  pieces. 
It  had  also  been  sordid,  and  for  that  sordidness  he  felt 
ironically  grateful,  recognizing  in  it  his  gateway  of  de 
liverance.  So  it  would  never  happen  again.  He  would 
see  to  that.  He  had  never  asked  for  such  things.  He 
had  avoided  them.  It  was,  he  persisted,  nothing  more 
than  an  episode. 

Yet  in  its  very  abruptness,  its  very  brevity,  it  remained 
monumental.  It  kept  confronting  him  as  a  blind  rock- 
wall  of  wonder,  rather  than  as  the  gentle  ascent  and  de 
cline  of  often-travelled  paths.  Its  very  brevity  left  it 
poignant,  with  no  sense  of  completion,  teasing  to  the 
imagination.  He  found  the  beak  of  Curiosity  in  his 
vitals,  forbidding  him  peace. 

Yet  out  of  the  laborious  exploitation  of  that  mental 
unrest  of  his  he  wrung  a  final  but  attenuated  consolation. 
It  was  through  such  things,  he  remembered,  that  men 
knew  life.  And  to  know  life,  after  all,  was  the  supreme 
end  of  living.  His  mood  even  merged  into  that  of  the 
flagellant  who  finds  satisfaction  in  the  lash  which  should 
have  brought  him  pain.  What  he  most  regretted,  as  time 
went  on,  was  the  vesture  of  ugliness  —  since  the  aesthetic 
was  so  vital  a  factor  in  his  existence  —  with  which  a  be 
wildering  new  experience  had  come  to  him. 

That  gradual  shift  of  front  continued  during  the  pre 
occupied  yet  empty  days  when  he  was  installing  his  be 
longings  in  the  music-room  of  the  Kirkner  house,  frown- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  45 

ing  solemnly  down  on  its  solemn  Brooklyn  avenue.  He 
had  gone  to  that  house  as  to  a  refuge.  He  was  ready  to 
welcome  its  ponderous  yet  shielding  respectabilities.  He 
would  be  glad  of  its  restraints,  its  solemn  surburban  se- 
clusiveness.  And  if  he  went  into  his  step-aunt's  home 
oppressed  by  the  feeling  of  being  an  impostor,  of  carry 
ing  with  him  a  bundle  of  mysteries  which  he  was  com 
pelled  to  keep  tight-packed,  like  a  spy  in  enemy  territory, 
he  was  frankly  grateful  for  that  interregnum  of  solitude 
which  preceded  Augusta  Kirkner's  return  from  Narra- 
gansett.  He  was  glad  enough  of  that  interval  by  him 
self,  with  nothing  but  a  corps  of  self-effacing  servants 
between  him  and  his  thoughts. 

He  found  himself,  in  fact,  face  to  face  with  a  series  of 
sharp  readjustments  in  which  no  outsider  could  be  of 
any  possible  help  to  him.  Yet  as  time  went  on  he  missed 
more  and  more  the  companionable  noises  of  The  Alwyn 
Arms.  He  had  a  hunger  for  something  more  than  self- 
effacing  servants  to  speak  to.  He  thought  of  Broadway 
and  its  tributary  streets  of  unrest  as  something  remote, 
as  something  no  longer  accessible.  He  thought  of  them 
as  an  exile  thinks  of  a  lost  fatherland.  But  more  often 
than  of  all  the  rest  he  thought  of  the  girl  called  Torrie. 
He  felt  the  need  of  seeing  her  again,  of  explaining  to  her, 
of  proving  that  his  flight  had  not  been  founded  on  cow 
ardice.  He  remembered  the  milk-white  shoulders,  and 
the  scar  at  the  base  of  the  throat  rounded  like  a  pigeon's. 
He  remembered  intimate  nestling  movements  that 
brought  him  up  short  in  the  midst  of  his  meagre  attempts 
at  work. 

After  such  thoughts  he  found  the  luxurious  emptiness 
of  the  wax-floored  music-room  which  had  been  given  up 
'for  his  use  impressing  him  as  something  bald  and  hard, 
as  impersonal  as  a  monk's  cell.  He  fought  against  this 
impression  by  doing  what  he  could  to  convert  the  big 
room  with  the  tempered  north  light  into  more  of  a  work- 
studio.  He  did  this  by  a  studied  parade  of  his  imple- 


46  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

ments  of  labour,  and  a  more  studied  assorting  of  his  own 
casts  about  the  room.  He  tacked  his  Chinese  prints 
against  the  wall-paneling  and  deliberately  freckled  the 
over-polished  floor  with  a  spattering  of  modelling-clay. 
But  even  the  friendly  inanimate  forms  of  his  own  fash 
ioning  now  seemed  like  souvenirs  treasured  by  an  exile. 
He  felt  more  and  more  like  a  prisoner  engaged  in  the 
decoration  of  his  cell.  For  large  and  spacious  as  that 
new  abode  seemed  to  him,  he  began  to  find  a  feeling  of 
restraint  in  its  very  shadows,  an  absence  of  elbow-room 
in  its  very  spaciousness.  And  even  before  the  return  of 
Augusta  Kirkner  and  her  daughter  he  found  himself  won 
dering  if  his  relationship  with  the  rest  of  that  household 
would  not  prove  an  impossible  one.  Their  offer,  ex 
tended  through  some  too  tenuous  tie  of  kinship,  had 
been  generous  enough.  But  to  Storrow  it  began  to 
savour  of  that  mediaeval  benevolence  once  extended  by 
the  munificent  to  the  indigent  troubadour.  More  and 
more  often  he  recalled  his  earlier  freedom  in  the  sister 
city  across  the  East  River,  his  privilege  of  eating  just 
when  and  where  he  pleased,  his  unscrutinized  comings 
and  goings  at  The  Alwyn  Arms. 

That  turned  his  mind  still  again  back  to  the  white- 
armed  girl  who  was  now  so  often  in  his  thoughts,  to 
recollections  of  gesture  and  pose  and  glance,  to  specula 
tions  as  to  how  sincere  she  had  been  when  she  had  whis 
pered  so  sleepily  and  so  close  to  his  ear  that  now  he  must 
never  leave  her.  He  even  found  it  not  unpleasant  to 
meditate  on  remembered  hesitations  and  reviewed  bewild 
erments,  for  if  by  some  obliquity  of  mental  process  he 
had  come  to  wring  a  mild  sense  of  martyrdom  out  of 
that  experience,  his  martyrdom  had  already  reached  the 
phase  where  he  could  bathe  his  hands  in  the  flame. 


CHAPTER   FOUR 

STORROW  was  still  engaged  in  his  silent  struggle 
to  fit  himself  into  a  less  compromising  environ 
ment  when  Mrs.  Kirkner  and  her  daughter  re 
turned  to  their  city  home.  So  smoothly  did  the  intricate 
cogs  mesh  and  revolve  in  that  quiet-chambered  abode  that 
the  return  had  been  effected  before  he  was  even  aware  of 
it.  The  knowledge  of  that  advent,  in  fact,  came  to  him 
from  Medberry,  the  aged  butler,  in  the  adroit  intimation 
that  he  might  possibly  be  expected  to  "  dress  "  for  dinner 
that  night.  He  was  still  in  his  studio,  however,  with  his 
well-smudged  modelling-gown  on,  when  Charlotte  Kirk 
ner  tapped  on  the  door  and  entered. 

Of  "  Cousin  Charlotte/'  as  by  a  stretch  of  truth  he  had 
once  called  her,  he  still  nursed  a  vague  and  boyish  memory 
of  a  very  pale  child  with  very  big  eyes,  unspeakably 
spindly  legs,  and  a  passion  for  a  broken  doll  known  as 
"  Alice-Emily."  It  came  as  a  shock  to  him,  accordingly, 
to  find  himself  confronted  by  a  quiet-mannered  and  ex 
tremely  self-possessed  young  woman  of  at  least  twenty 
years.  Yet  her  smile  was  almost  a  timid  one  as  she  stood 
studying  him  out  of  a  pair  of  cogitative  grey  eyes  that 
were  unmistakably  friendly. 

"  Owen,  how  brown  you  are ! "  she  said  as  they  shook 
hands.  And  a  tinge  of  colour  showed  along  her  pale 
cheeks  as  she  spoke. 

"  I'd  never  have  known  you,"  admitted  Owen,  ob 
viously  constrained,  prepared  to  dislike  her  at  the  first 
intimation  of  hostility.  But  she  impressed  him  as  being 
too  neutral-tinted,  too  timorously  passive,  to  awaken  any 
positive  fires  of  opposition.  She  was  shell-like,  he  felt, 

47 


48  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

as  delicately  tinted  and  polished  as  mollusk  labium,  and 
probably  as  soft  in  texture. 

"  Are  you  going  to  like  it?  "  she  asked,  with  a  glance 
about  the  new  studio.  She  intended  to  do  what  she  could, 
he  realized,  to  make  him  feel  at  home. 

"  Could  one  help  liking  it?  "  he  evaded.  And  she  col 
oured  again,  dimly  conscious  of  some  lack  of  genuine 
ness  in  his  retort. 

"  Mother  was  sorry,  of  course,  not  to  be  here.  But 
our  month  at  Narragansett  wasn't  up  until  last  night. 
And  mother  never  changes  her  plans." 

"  I'm  afraid  I've  already  interfered  with  them,"  he  ad 
mitted,  wondering  as  he  spoke  just  how  much  the  younger 
woman's  personality  had  been  subjugated  by  the  iron 
will  of  the  older  wroman. 

"  No,  everything  will  go  along  exactly  the  same,"  was 
the  girl's  almost  listless  reply.  "  After  Narragansett 
we  always  go  to  the  Swansea  cottage  for  a  month.  So 
by  next  Monday  you'll  have  the  whole  house  to  yourself 
again." 

"  And  you  like  being  on  the  wing,  that  way  ?  "  he 
asked,  following  the  meditative  grey  eyes  as  they  studied 
first  The  Sentinel  Wolf  and  then  The  Last  Of  The  Pack. 
And  it  was  his  turn  to  colour  a  little  at  her  head-nod  of 
approval  after  an  inspection  of  the  second  figure. 

"  My  liking  it  or  not  scarcely  counts,"  she  explained, 
coming  back  to  him.  "  Mother,  you  know,  is  not  at  all 
well." 

"  I'm  sorry  to  hear  that,"  was  Storrow's  perfunctory 
murmur,  swayed  by  the  persuasion  that  the  illness  in 
question  was  mostly  that  of  too  much  wealth  and  too 
great  a  burden  of  idleness.  He  realized,  as  Charlotte 
half -humorously  went  on  to  explain  her  mother's  method 
of  living,  that  Augusta  Kirkner  was  one  of  those  birds  of 
passage  peculiar  to  American  civilization,  a  spirit  driven 
from  place  to  place  by  mysterious  migratory  impulses  to 
which  she  responded  as  implacably  as  wren  and  robin 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  49 

responded  to  nature's  call  for  seasonal  advances  and  re 
treats.  There  was  the  predestined  winter  flight  to  Flor 
ida,  the  unvarying  vernal  shift  to  Lake  wood,  the  inevi 
table  August  at  Narragansett,  the  duly  allotted  four  weeks 
at  the  cottage  at  Swansea-On-The-Sound,  after  which 
came  the  accustomed  twelve  weeks  in  the  City  itself. 

Yet  Augusta  Kirkner,  Storrow  realized  as  he  sat  across 
the  table  from  her  that  night  at  dinner,  was  anything  but 
a  caprice-controlled  and  flighty-minded  woman.  She  had 
brought  to  the  management  of  her  estate  that  clear-head 
edness  which  it  demanded.  To  the  sorrows  of  widow 
hood  she  had  likewise  brought  a  stoicism  too  granitic  to 
give  rootage  to  any  touch  of  bitterness.  She  knew  life, 
demanded  lucidity,  and  prided  herself  on  her  frankness 
of  speech.  There  was  something  methodic  even  in  her 
restlessness.  Her  vagaries  of  comment  were  as  deliber 
ate  as  those  repeated  shif tings  from  front  to  front  which 
were  made  with  a  calculated  precision  that  tended  to 
translate  them  into  the  mechanical.  It  was  only  later  on 
that  Storrow  awakened  to  the  fact  that  her  often  dis 
concerting  impatience  of  mind  was  based  largely  on  a  con 
dition  of  body  studiously  and  even  heroically  hidden 
away  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  a  condition  arising  from 
a  disorder  which  only  the  knife  could  hope  to  remedy. 
But  Augusta  Kirkner,  with  all  her  strength  of  will,  had 
not  the  strength  to  face  that  knife.  With  everything  to 
add  to  the  colour  and  depth  of  life,  that  secret  inner 
malady  was  always  there  at  her  elbow,  as  soft-voiced  as 
a  second  Medberry,  to  remind  her  of  a  coming  engage 
ment  which  could  not  be  avoided.  And  if  she  sighed 
involuntarily  as  she  stared  at  the  newcomer  under  her 
roof,  it  was  at  the 'memory  that  youth  and  vigour  are  in 
deed  a  precious  gift. 

'  Your  mother,  Owen,  was  a  wonderful  woman,"  she 
told  him  over  her  coffee-cup  in  the  library,  "  wonderful 
in  everything  but  her  choice  of  a  husband." 

If  Storrow  winced  it  was  not  so  much  because  of  her 


50  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

candour  as  it  was  for  that  thrust  at  the  dead.  His  eye, 
during  that  moment  of  tension,  met  Charlotte's.  She  too 
flushed  a  little.  But  her  quick  glance  of  comprehension, 
of  sympathy,  prompted  him  to  remain  silent. 

He  was  conscious  of  that  repeated  tacit  plea  for  pa 
tience  when  later  in  the  evening  they  went  up  to  the 
music-room  for  an  examination  of  the  new  studio.  The 
older  woman  had  cursorily  inspected  a  handful  of  Stor- 
row's  pencil-studies  and  had  abstractedly  admitted  that 
a  couple  of  his  modellings  in  clay  were  "  pretty."  That 
word  stung,  like  the  briar  on  a  rose-stem.  And  again, 
in  Charlotte's  quick  glance  of  understanding,  he  was 
conscious  of  a  silent  compact  between  himself  and  the 
girl  who  found  herself  helpless  to  champion  his  cause  by 
anything  more  substantial  than  an  outthrust  of  hand  to 
invisible  hand. 

"  Are  you  going  to  do  honest  work  here  ?  "  demanded 
the  older  woman. 

"  I  hope  to,"  he  said  with  sudden  constraint,  once  more 
conscious  of  the  perilous  compression  which  was  cheating 
him  of  the  very  air  his  timber-wolf  life  demanded.  And 
his  instinctive  passion  for  elbow-room,  for  untrammelled 
freedom  of  movement,  prompted  him  to  add :  "  But  I 
may  have  some  trouble,  of  course,  about  getting  models 
over  here!  " 

"Models?"  demanded  Augusta  Kirkner.  "What 
kind  of  models  ?  "' 

"  The  kind  I'll  always  need  for  my  work,"  Storrow  ex 
plained  with  a  suavity  which  would  have  been  recognized 
as  dangerous  by  only  those  who  knew  him  well,  "  figure 
models." 

"  Figure  models  ?  "  repeated  Augusta  Kirkner.  The 
actual  meaning  of  the  words  seemed  to  be  filtering  very 
slowly  through  to  her  consciousness.  "  You  don't  mean 
women  —  women  who  make  money  out  of  their  naked 


ness 


"  They  wouldn't  be  of  much  use  to  me,"  said  Storrow, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  51 

with  a  tendency  to  exult  in  her  slowly  growing  horror, 
"  unless  they  were  naked!  " 

If  he  spoke  with  a  calmness  that  bordered  slightly  on 
flippancy,  his  feelings  were  more  profoundly  involved  than 
he  pretended.  He  could  remember  only  too  vividly,  in 
fact,  his  trepidation  at  the  engagement  of  his  first  figure- 
model.  He  had  known  none  of  the  ordinary  art-students' 
life-class  initiation  into  such  things,  and  keen  as  he  was 
to  correct  his  modelling  in  wax  of  an  Indian  girl's  back, 
he  had  been  a  very  unhappy  young  man  as  that  first  model 
came  to  him  one  morning  in  Montreal  and  quietly  sug 
gested  that  she  could  undress  behind  his  screen.  He  had 
stood  listening  to  those  sounds  of  unrobing,  wincing  at 
the  sight  of  lingerie  flung  carelessly  up  across  the  screen- 
top.  Then  his  courage  had  failed  him.  He  had  called 
out  that  he  had  remembered  an  overlooked  engagement 
and  had  vanished  from  the  studio  to  walk  the  streets  for 
countless  miles,  leaving  a  dollar-bill  in  one  of  the  sadly 
worn  shoes  of  that  sadly  puzzled  young  woman. 

"  And  it  will  be  impossible  for  you  to  do  your  work, 
without  having  those  women  come  here?  "  his  thoughtful- 
eyed  hostess  was  demanding  of  him. 

"  All  artists  seem  to  use  them,"  he  said  with  a  perhaps 
unnecessary  assumption  of  world-weary  sophistication, 
followed  by  a  pregnant  enough  glance  up  over  his  shoul 
der  towards  a  print  of  Titian's  Sacred  and  Profane  Love. 
Augusta  Kirkner  and  her  daughter  both  followed  the  line 
of  his  gaze.  They  both  stood  for  a  moment  in  silence 
regarding  the  bodily  splendour  of  that  half -reclining  fig 
ure  gazing  so  tranquilly  out  on  a  world  where  youth  with 
ered  and  passed  away  and  beauty  itself  vanished  in  tears 
and  time. 

The  immemorial  loveliness  of  the  figure  seemed  to 
tranquillize  them,  to  touch  them  into  a  humility  which 
neither  of  them  attempted  to  articulate.  The  older 
woman,  in  fact,  crossed  to  a  chair  and  sat  down  in  it, 
with  a  sigh. 


52  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  I've  been  in  the  Borghese,  of  course,"  she  admitted, 
with  her  gaze  now  fastened  on  Owen  Storrow,  and  arriv 
ing  at  the  conclusion,  without  being  quite  conscious  of  it, 
that  this  youth  was  much  more  attractive  than  anything 
he  might  ever  be  able  to  cut  out  of  wax  or  mould  out  of 
clay.  "  I  know  the  Louvre,  and  I've  an  inkling  of  what 
is  art  and  what  is  not  art.  I've  always  known  that  such 
women  were  used,  of  course.  But  I've  never  thought  of 
you,  Owen,  as  mixed  up  with  this  sort  of  thing." 

"  Why  not?  "  he  demanded,  depressed  by  the  prospect 
of  those  obsolete  and  futile  old  problems  which  it  now 
seemed  so  foolish  to  revive. 

"  I  suppose  it's  because  you're  not  a  Titian,  or  a  Zo- 
loagua,  or  even  an  Epstein.  You  see,  you're  so  young." 

"  That,"  retorted  Storrow,  "  is  a  sin  which  Time  may 
possibly  correct." 

He  was  thinking,  as  he  spoke,  that  he  already  knew 
life  much  better  than  these  women  imagined,  these  shel 
tered  and  shrouded  women  whose  lives  were  ruled  by  rite. 
His  eye  followed  Charlotte  Kirkner  as  she  crossed  the 
studio,  as  though  announcing  her  withdrawal  from  a  dis 
cussion  which  was  proving  distasteful  to  her. 

A  wave  of  impatience  swept  through  him  as  he  stared 
after  her,  impatience  at  her  reserves  and  reticences,  her 
conventional  shynesses  and  her  swift  changes  of  colour. 
Under  all  those  pretences  and  pretexts,  he  told  himself,  he 
knew  her  better  than  she  knew  herself.  For  now  he  un 
derstood  women.  He  knew  even  her  minutest  line  of 
body,  under  its  undissimulating  screen  of  clothing. 
There  was  no  longer  any  mystery  about  that  body. 
There  was  no  longer  the  allurement  of  knowledge  denied. 
Her  little  poses  and  evasions  of  sex  were  almost  an  irrita 
tion  to  him.  They  were  tribal  affectations  and  impos 
tures,  as  hollow  as  the  veil  of  harems,  as  transparent  as 
the  abortive  bride-flights  of  the  Chippewas. 

"  I'm  a  woman  of  the  world,  Owen,"  Augusta  Kirkner 
was  saying  to  him.  "  You  may  think  I'm  narrow,  but 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  53 

the  one  thing  I  like  to  see  is  results.  And  I  can't  help 
wondering  if  you'll  get  results  enough  to  make  it  worth 
while  for  what  you'll  have  to  pay  for  this  sort  of  thing." 

"  What,"  he  demanded,  "  will  I  have  to  pay?  " 

"  It  seems  to  me  you'll  have  to  pay  the  natural  man's 
natural  respect  for  women.  No,  don't  misjudge  me.  I 
know  that  all  art  is  noble  enough,  when  it's  big  art.  But 
I  also  know  something  about  the  studio-set  that  frets 
about  its  fringes.  I've  seen  them,  both  in  Paris  and  here 
at  home.  And  you  can't  get  mixed  up  in  that  slack  Bo 
hemian  set  without  losing  more  than  you  imagine.  If 
you  do,  you'll  surely  find  yourself  out  of  it,  out  of  life, 
out  of  the  centre  of  things,  the  things  that  count." 

Storrow  laughed.     But  it  was  a  mirthless  laugh. 

"  Well,  it's  like  war,"  he  protested.  "  I've  got  to  take 
my  chance  in  that.  But  since  form  happens  to  be  my 
Tiedium,  it's  only  through  form  that  I  can  express  myself." 

"  You  mean  that's  the  only  thing  that  interests  you?  " 
she  asked,  so  intent  on  her  own  ends  that  she  remained 
unconscious  of  the  degree  to  which  she  was  persecuting 
still  ardent  youth. 

"  I  have  to  express  myself,"  he  stubbornly  and  some 
what  listlessly  contended. 

;'  Well,  if  you  must  do  that,  why  not  do  it  respec 
tably?"  she  inquired.  And  the  worst  of  it,  he  found, 
was  that  she  was  in  earnest. 

"  I  don't  think  I  care  to  be  respectable,"  he  finally  re 
plied,  realizing  his  Rubicon  lay  before  him  and  might  as 
well  be  crossed.  "  I  can't  even  waste  time  on  it.  I've  cer 
tain  ends  to  reach,  and  certain  work  to  do.  To  reach 
those  ends  I've  got  to  have  life  studies.  I've  got  to  draw 
and  model  from  the  nude.  If  that  is  going  to  involve 
situations  that  are  cramping,  that  are  embarrassing,  the 
only  thing  left  for  me  to  do  is  to  move  back  to  quarters- 
where  I'll  find  freedom,  the  freedom  I've  got  to  have." 

She  looked  up  quickly,  at  the  quick  note  of  passion  in 
that  ultimatum  of  his.  She  was  a  woman  who  seldom 


54  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

encountered  opposition  and  even  less  frequently  counten 
anced  it.     Then  she  drew  herself  together,  with  an  effort 

"  My  last  promise  to  your  mother,  Owen,  was  that  I'd 
always  help  you  if  I  could.  And  I  think  I  can  help  you, 
for  notwithstanding  my  loss  of  many  liberties,  I  still 
have  a  small  amount  of  influence  in  this  city.  So  don't 
jump  too  youthfully  at  snap  judgments.  I  have  no  in 
tention  of  interfering  with  what  you  feel  to  be  your  life- 
work.  And  if  you  need  women  without  clothes  on,  for 
that  work,  by  all  means  do  what  the  other  artists  have  to 
do  —  only  please  keep  them  strictly  to  your  studio." 

That,  Storrow  was  prompted  to  retort,  was  the  trouble 
with  one's  own  family  —  they  refused  to  realize  that  one 
ever  grew  up,  that  one  ever  had  a  mind  and  a  mission 
of  one's  own.  But  a  glance  across  the  studio  at  Char 
lotte's  face  prompted  him  to  sudden  silence.  On  that 
face  he  once  more  saw  what  was  almost  a  look  of  plead 
ing.  She  was  imploring  him,  he  felt,  for  patience,  for 
the  endurance  of  that,  apparently,  which  she  herself  had 
so  often  endured.  Yet  the  next  moment  his  memory  had 
flashed  back  to  the  woman  of  The  Alwyn  Arms.  He 
pictured  her  as  she  had  sat  half -dressed  on  a  trunk-top, 
abstractedly  pulling  on  a  pair  of  thin  silk  stockings. 
Then  his  thoughts  flashed  still  deeper  back  into  the  past, 
as  thoughts  have  the  habit  of  doing,  and  he  saw  still  an 
other  woman,  an  older  and  gentler-eyed  woman,  sitting 
on  a  broken  marble  bench  above  the  misty  blue  of  Lake 
Erie.  "  Boy,  boy,  /  want  you  to  be  good!  "  that  woman 
had  cried  out,  tremulously,  with  one  hand  on  his  hair  and 
her  brooding  eyes  fixed  on  his  own  slightly  abashed  eyes. 
That  woman  had  been  his  own  mother,  his  own  mother  to 
whom  they  had  been  neither  just  nor  generous.  And  his 
smile  hardened  with  his  heart  as  he  looked  up  again  at 
the  sound  of  Augusta  Kirkner's  voice. 

"  But  we  won't  be  interfering  with  you,  Owen,  as  much 
as  you  imagine,"  she  was  saying.  "  Before  the  middle 
of  the  week  we'll  be  away  again,  so  you'll  have  your  free- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  55 

dom,  after  all.  And  by  the  time  we're  back  you'll  be 
feeling  more  at  home."  She  rose  from  her  chair  and 
crossed  the  room  with  that  qualified  dignity  of  a  woman 
of  importance  who  has  conceded  ground  to  her  enemy. 
"  By  the  way,  we're  lunching  at  Sherry's  tomorrow  with 
the  Roubetskois.  They  are  people  who  might  prove 
very  helpful  to  you.  So  I  hope  you  will  be  able  to  join 
us." 

It  had  been  very  casually  announced,  that  luncheon  at 
Sherry's.  But  even  before  he  caught  Charlotte's  anx 
ious  eye  he  knew  that  it  involved  both  a  challenge  and  a 
test.  Still  again  he  sensed  some  silent  pleading  for  a 
suspension  of  judgment. 

"  I'll  be  very  glad  to,"  he  said.  He  forced  a  smile  as 
he  spoke,  though  it  annoyed  him  unreasonably  to  notice 
that  the  girl  across  the  room  was  watching  him  with  the 
quick  expectancy  of  a  circus-dog  when  the  trainer  slaps 
a  polished  boot-leg  with  his  whip.  That  flash  of  annoy 
ance  did  not  escape  the  older  woman,  though  she  misread 
its  meaning. 

"•By  the  way,  Owen,  what  clubs  do  you  belong  to?  " 
she  inquired,  with  a  matter-of-factness  that  was  not  with 
out  its  delicately  chastening  cruelty. 

"  None,"  retorted  Storrow,  puzzled  by  the  sudden  in 
vocatory  look  from  the  girl  on  the  far  side  of  the  studio. 

"  Then  what  clubs  do  you  propose  to  get  in  touch 
with?"  asked  the  older  woman,  with  slightly  elevated 
eyebrows. 

"  None,"  was  Storrow's  grim  response. 

"  But  won't  you  rather  feel  the  need  of  contact  with 
your  fellows,"  pursued  Augusta  Kirkner,  her  studied  pa 
tience  not  untouched  with  triumph,  "  with  other  men 
working  along  the  same  lines?  " 

"  It  would  help,  of  course,"  admitted  Storrow.  It  was 
the  anxious  eyes  across  the  room,  and  nothing  else,  that 
prompted  him  to  passiveness.  And  the  girl's  infinitely 
small  smile  of  approval  did  not  escape  him. 


56  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  Yes,  I  rather  imagine  a  nice  club  or  two  would 
help !  "  murmured  his  hostess.  A  faint  trace  of  colour 
had  crept  into  her  finely  wrinkled  cheek,  and  Storrow 
knew,  as  he  watched  her  over-dignified  retreat,  that  he 
had  exasperated  her.  He  was  more  disturbed,  however, 
by  Charlotte's  hand-clasp  and  her  whispered  words  of 
"  Don't  mind  "  as  she  smiled  her  fallaciously  light  good 
bye  to  him.  Still  again  her  face  took  on  its  colouring  of 
delicate  shell-pink  and  still  again  spirit  wirelessed  some 
silent  message  to  spirit.  He  realized  more  poignantly 
than  ever,  when  he  was  alone,  that  a  secret  had  in  some 
way  been  established  between  them.  Their  partnership 
in  that  silent  understanding  seemed  to  link  them  into 
something  closer  than  casual  acquaintanceship.  But  the 
thought  of  it  touched  him  no  more  profoundly  than  sun- 
glow  at  a  city  street-end  touches  a  hungry  and  harried 
stock-broker. 


CHAPTER   FIVE 

STORROW  had  thought  the  thing  out.     He  nursed 
no  illusions  as  to  the  immediate  course  before  him. 
He  foresaw  the  inevitable.     He  knew  that  he  and 
the  Kirkner  house  were  destined  to  part  company,  that 
he  must  move  on  to  a  less  restricted  environment,  that 
he  must  have  breathing-space  about  him,  no  matter  what 
the  cost.     Yet  he  had  deferred  that  impending  decision, 
for"  the  simple  reason  that  Charlotte  Kirkner  had  openly 
asked  him  to  do  so. 

She  talked  to  him  on  the  way  home,  after  the  luncheon 
at  Sherry's.  They  were  alone  in  the  suede-upholstered 
landaulet,  having  dropped  the  older  woman  for  a  com 
mittee-meeting  at  the  Gregorian  Club. 

'  You  and  mother  are  not  going  to  agree,"  said  the  un 
happy  girl,  with  conviction. 

"  I'm  sorry,"  acknowledged  Storrow. 

"  I'm  sorrier  than  you  are,  Owen,"  she  found  the 
frankness  to  confess.  Then  she  went  on,  as  though  to 
screen  that  momentary  surrender  to  candour.  "  What 
mother  would  like,  of  course,  is  to  find  you  fitting  in. 
She  demands  success,  the  kind  of  success  you  can  recog 
nize  and  label.  She  has  no  love  for  your  tone-wolf  kind 
of  life.  Yet  that's  the  kind  I  feel  sure  you  will  want  to 
lead." 

"  What  makes  you  think  that?  " 

"  You'll  always  like  to  pick  your  own  path,  I  know. 
You'll  always  prefer  being  one  of  the  insurgents,  of  the 
non-conformers,  just  as  I  should,  if  I  had  the  courage. 
But  mother  would  rather  see  you  swinging  in  with  our 

57 


58  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

new  Brooklyn  Society  of  Artists,  with  something  nice  to 
hang  in  the  annual  exhibition  at  the  Pouch  Gallery,  and 
an  honourable  mention  by  the  art-critic  of  the  Eagle! " 

"  And  do  you  feel  that  way?  " 

"  You  have  your  own  life  to  live,"  she  slowly  ac 
knowledged. 

"And  haven't  you?"  he  contended,  with  a  wayward 
sense  of  irritation  at  the  sheer  fragilities  of  the  Dresden- 
china  spirit. 

Her  pale  face  deepened  to  a  magnolia-pink  under  his 
slightly  contemptuous  gaze. 

"  I've  never  been  free,  the  way  you  have,"  she  finally 
said,  without  looking  at  him.  He  wondered  what  she 
would  think  if  she  knew  just  how  free  he  had  been. 

"  Don't  you  want  to  be  ?  " 

"  We  all  want  to  be,"  she  conceded.  Then  she  added, 
after  a  minute  of  quiet  thought :  "  And  I've  a  feeling 
that  you  are  going  to  help  me  along  that  line." 

"  How  can  I?  "  he  asked. 

"  For  one  thing,  when  mother  asks  you  up  to  Swansea 
next  week,  would  you  mind  coming,  if  it's  only  for  a  day 
or  two?  " 

He  was  arrested  by  the  note  of  earnestness  in  her  voice. 
There  was  flattery  in  the  thought  of  thus  sharing  a  sec 
ond  confidence  with  her. 

"  Of  course  I'll  come,"  he  told  her,  in  a  lighter  tone. 
But  he  found  it  impossible  to  laugh  the  gravity  out  of 
her  eyes. 

"  Thank  you,  Owen,"  she  said  with  a  humility  which 
puzzled  him  a  little.  And  during  the  rest  of  that  drive 
home  they  lapsed  into  those  occasional  silences  which 
mark  the  dethronement  of  formality  and  the  accession  of 
intimacy. 

Owen  Storrow  did  as  he  had  promised.  But  he  did 
so  without  enthusiasm.  He  accepted  Augusta  Kirkner's 
invitation  to  spend  a  few  days  at  their  Sound  cottage. 
He  caught  a  noon  train,  glad  to  escape  from  a  city  of  still 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  59 

torrid  steel  and  stone,  reminding  himself  that  it  was  all 
merely  a  slight  prolongation  of  an  armistice,  a  deferring 
of  final  issues.  For  he  knew  now,  more  definitely  than 
before,  that  it  would  be  out  of  the  question  for  him  to  re 
main  in  the  Kirkner  house,  that  freedom  was  too  precious 
to  be  sacrificed  for  mere  personal  considerations.  He 
must  follow  his  own  open  trails,  no  matter  where  they 
led.  He  must  beat  down  the  jungle  of  tradition  until  he 
at  least  had  breathing  room. 

His  arrival  at  Swansea-On-The-Sound,  however,  was 
not  quite  the  dull  and  diffident  occasion  he  had  antici 
pated.  He  reached  the  water-front,  in  fact,  to  hear  a 
very  red-faced  old  gentleman  with  binoculars  shout  to 
another  old  gentleman  in  white  ducks  that  a  cat-boat  had 
gone  over.  Storrow  next  caught  sight  of  a  flutter  of 
women  and  children  along  the  boat-landing  in  front  of 
the  secluded  little  Club-house.  Without  exception  they 
were  staring  out  into  the  open  Sound.  One  thin-legged 
girl  of  about  twelve,  he  noticed,  was  weeping  audibly  and 
unreservedly. 

"  Boats !  Somebody  get  boats !  "  one  of  the  old  gentle 
men  in  white  ducks  was  crying.  This  struck  Storrow  as 
being  rather  foolish,  for  the  simple  reason  that  there 
seemed  to  be  no  boats  in  the  neighbourhood.  Following 
the  quavering  arm  of  the  other  old  gentleman,  he  peered 
beyond  the  little  bay  and  was  finally  able  to  discern  a 
bobbing  white  head  in  the  riffled  blue-green  stretches  of 
the  open  tide-way.  The  swimmer,  whoever  it  was,  had 
for  some  reason  left  the  overturned  boat,  and  was  trying 
to  reach  shore.  But  that  swimmer,  Storrow's  practised 
eye  discerned,  had  a  great  distance  to  travel.  And  no 
body  seemed  to  be  doing  anything. 

Storrow  had  pushed  through  the  crowd,  and  was  star 
ing  about  that  lonely  little  bay  for  anything  tha*t  would 
carry  a  pair  of  oars,  when  he  caught  sight  of  Augusta 
Kirkner  advancing  slowly  from  one  end  of  the  club-house 
towards  the  boat-landing. 


60  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

She  stopped  before  him,  with  her  hands  pressed  tight 
against  her  breast,  in  a  gesture  that  impressed  him  as 
singularly  dramatic.  Her  face  looked  pitiful,  suddenly 
stricken  with  age,  vapid  and  yellow  and  flabby-lined 
against  its  over-fastidiously  coiffured  hair,  which  showed 
up  more  grey  than  he  had  expected  in  the  betraying  white 
sunlight.  There  was  mingled  appeal  and  protest  in  her 
gesture,  a  gesture  which  he  could  not  understand.  He 
had  thought  her  incapable,  in  fact,  of  any  such  disorganiz 
ing  surrender  to  emotion. 

"Ifs  Charlotte/'  she  cried  out  in  a  stifled  voice,  with 
yet  another  startlingly  dramatic  hand-movement  towards 
the  riffled  blue  tideway. 

"  Charlotte !  "  repeated  Storrow,  backing  away  a  step 
or  two,  from  sheer  shock. 

"  It's  the  first  time  she  ever  openly  disobeyed  me," 
sobbed  the  woman  with  stricken  eyes. 

Storrow  heard  that  strange  statement  without  attempt 
ing  to  answer  it  or  explain  it  to  his  own  mind,  for  he  was 
busy  jerking  off  his  shoes  and  throwing  aside  as  much 
clothing  as  he  could.  Then,  having  assured  himself  that 
the  white  bobbing  head  was  still  out  there  in  the  wind- 
riffled  tideway,  he  said,  very  quietly,  "  I'll  get  her,"  and 
went  over  the  edge  of  the  landing-platform  in  a  crisp  and 
clean-cut  dive  which  brought  a  forlorn  little  cheer  from 
the  petticoated  group  behind  him. 

Storrow  knew  he  did  not  merit  that  cheer,  much  as  it 
meant  to  him  as  he  surged  out  with  a  long  and  steady 
stroke.  He  was  conscious  of  a  dual  sense  of  buoyancy, 
a  buoyancy  of  the  body  which  arose  from  the  fact  that 
he  found  himself  swimming  in  salt  water  after  so  many 
months  of  floundering  about  in  fresh  water,  and  a  buoy 
ancy  of  the  mind  arising  from  the  fact  that  he  was  doing 
something  to  redeem  himself  in  the  eyes  of  Augusta  Kirk- 
ner.  He  had  small  doubt  of  the  outcome  of  that  ad 
venture.  His  woodland  life  had  left  him  as  much  at 
home  in  water  as  on  land.  He  was  sure  of  his  strength, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  61 

sure  of  his  stroke,  in  the  best  of  condition  for  any  such 
test  of  endurance. 

Yet  he  saw,  as  he  reached  the  open  water,  that  it  was 
going  to  be  a  test  of  endurance,  after  all,  a  monotonous 
and  unimpressive  plugging  away  against  those  wind- 
riffles  until  he  got  safely  back  with  her.  It  would  be 
easy  enough,  outside  of  the  work.  It  would  be  so  easy, 
he  felt  that  it  might  prove  ridiculous,  as  destitute  of  any 
tang  of  peril  as  pulling  a  child  out  of  a  three-foot  pond. 
They  might  even  laugh  at  him,  when  he  got  back,  for 
that  over-theatrical  header  from  the  boat-landing. 

Then  he  remembered  that  there  was  a  possibility  of  the 
girl  herself  not  being  able  to  keep  up  until  he  got  to  her 
side.  So  he  started  to  shout  towards  the  bobbing  head. 

But  he  could  not  be  sure  whether  or  not  she  heard  him. 
He  could  catch  no  answering  signal  from  her.  Her 
strokes,  apparently,  were  quite  feeble.  So  he  swam 
harder,  skirting  the  fringes  of  fatigue  in  an  effort  to 
reach  her  as  quickly  as  possible.  Above  all  things,  he 
told  himself,  he  must  reach  her  without  loss  of  time.  He 
must  reach  her  quickly  no  matter  what  it  cost  him.  He 
must.  He  must! 

He  could  hear  her  breathing,  even  before  he  got  to  her 
side.  It  was  stertorious,  and  laboured,  through  the 
mouth,  the  frantic,  panting  gasps  of  a  throat  half- 
strangled  with  brine.  Her  eyes  were  half-shut  and  the 
white  sailor-hat  pinned  on  the  back  of  her  hair  was  wet 
and  sodden,  giving  an  untimely  touch  of  the  ridiculous  to 
the  pathetically  colourless  face  with  its  open  and  drooling 
mouth  and  its  tragically  sharp  cough  of  breath. 

He  called  out  to  her  still  again,  when  quite  close  to  her, 
but  she  did  not  seem  to  hear.  She  was  swimming  auto 
matically,  with  eyes  now  open  and  a  little  wild.  She  was 
struggling  falteringly  on,  without  sense  of  direction  or 
destination.  Storrow  remembered,  as  he  saw  the  wild 
look  on  that  face  so  close  to  him,  that  he  might  have  to 
strike  her,  to  stun  her,  before  she  would  be  passive  enough 


62  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

to  be  handled  as  he  would  be  compelled  to  handle  her. 
He  had  heard  of  such  things  being  necessary.  But  he 
felt,  as  he  came  nearer,  that  he  could  never  have  the 
heart  to  plant  a  blow  on  that  pathetically  distorted  face, 
even  if  she  seized  him  with  the  strangle-hold  of  the 
drowning. 

He  remained  discreetly  alert,  though,  as  he  reached  out 
an  arm  and  cupped  a  hand  under  her  drooping  chin,  lift 
ing  it  clear  of  the  water. 

"  It's  all  right,"  he  assured  her. 

"  Blub-blub,"  was  the  only  sound  that  came  from  her 
lips. 

"  See,  you  can  rest.     I've  got  you,"  he  repeated. 

He  "  treaded  "  water,  holding  her  up  and  forcibly  re 
straining  the  still  pulsing  arms,  obsessed  as  they  were  with 
the  blind  conviction  that  their  stroke  must  not  stop.  He 
watched  her  as  she  filled  her  lungs,  and  ceased  to  blub- 
blub,  and  cleared  her  throat  of  its  strangling  brine.  He 
even  washed  the  mucus  from  her  chin  with  Sound  water. 

"  Now  put  your  hand  on  my  shoulder  and  rest,  while 
I  tread  water,"  he  told  her.  She  did  as  he  commanded 
quietly  enough,  still  panting. 

"  If  I  could  only  breathe ! "  she  complained. 

"  You  will,  as  soon  as  you  rest,"  he  assured  her. 
"  No,  don't  fight  to  keep  up.  I've  got  you.  Just  let  your 
self  go.  That's  better.  See,  you're  all  right !  " 

She  floated  there,  lightly  poised,  with  her  eyes  still 
closed.  He  watched  her  intently,  treading  water  as  he 
did  so,  to  rest  his  own  aching  arms.  "  You're  all  right !  " 
he  repeated,  without  knowing  he  was  speaking.  He  had 
glanced  back  over  his  shoulder  at  the  shore-line.  It 
seemed  disturbingly  far  away.  Then  he  looked  back  at 
the  girl.  She  was  breathing  deeply,  gratefully,  in  heavy 
shuddering  breaths.  But  the  tide  had  them  in  its  teeth, 
and  every  minute  was  precious. 

"  I'd  like  to  get  off  that  skirt  of  yours,"  he  told  her. 

She  opened  her  eyes  at  that,  for  the  first  time.     The 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  63 

wildness  had  gone  out  of  them.  There  was  a  tragic  in- 
tentness  in  their  gaze  as  they  dwelt  bewildered  on  his 
spray-streaked  face. 

"  Do  you  mean  we  can  get  back  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Of  course,"  he  promptly  told  her.  And  he  forced  a 
laugh  as  he  said  the  words.  "Of  course  we'll  get  back. 
It's  not  even  worth  worrying  over." 

"  I  don't  believe,  Owen,  that  I  can  swim  much  more." 

"  You  won't  even  have  to  swim.  I'll  attend  to  all 
that." 

She  smiled  wanly,  almost  contentedly. 

"  What  must  I  do  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Come  closer,"  he  told  her.  "  I'm  going  to  tear  that 
waist  band  loose,  some  way  or  other.  Now  we'll  slip 
out  of  it.  Once  more!  That's  better.  It  won't  be  in 
your  way,  or  mine  either,  now.  But  wait  a  minute  until 
we  change  sides.  There!  Now  just  rest  that  way,  and 
slow  and  steady  will  do  it." 

They  moved  forward  in  silence.  It  was  not  as  easy 
as  it  had  promised.  But  Storrow  kept  at  it,  grimly,  dog 
gedly,  determinedly.  He  wished  he  knew  more  about  the 
tides.  He  wished  he  had  an  oar.  He  wished  a  motor- 
launch  would  happen  along.  He  noticed  that  the  full 
dome  of  the  sky  was  a  robin-egg  blue.  It  was  a  beauti 
ful  blue. 

"  That's  fine,"  he  said  aloud,  smiling  into  the  blue- 
white  face  so  close  to  him. 

"  But  we're  not  gaining,"  protested  the  girl.  Storrow, 
with  an  anxious  eye,  measured  the  land-marks  along  the 
shore-line.  A  vague  trouble  began  to  eat  at  his  heart. 
The  girl  was  right.  They  had  made  no  appreciable  pro 
gress.  But  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by  acknowledging 
defeat. 

Storrow  looked  back  at  the  girl  beside  him.  Her  teeth 
were  chattering,  by  this  time,  cluttering  together  like 
castanets.  He  felt  infinitely  sorry  for  her.  That  fragile 
body  had  never  been  fashioned  for  any  such  ordeal. 


64  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

Fate  was  making  unfair  demands  on  that  timorous  soul, 
taxing  it  beyond  its  power  of  resistance.  Life  had  not 
prepared  her  for  such  things.  Yet  she  was  making  a 
tremendous  effort  to  be  brave.  And  there  was  a  cor 
responding  obligation  for  him  to  play  his  part. 

"  We'll  make  it,  all  right,"  he  told  her,  starting  for 
ward  with  a  stronger  stroke.  "  Don't  worry,  we'll  make 
it,"  he  said  still  again,  worried  by  a  slap  of  brine  in  the 
face  which  reminded  him  the  wind  was  freshening  and 
was  to  be  straight  against  him.  And  there  were  unmis 
takable  aches  in  his  arms  now,  especially  in  the  flexor  of 
the  little  ringer.  That,  he  surmised,  was  because  the  little 
finger  was  the  weakest  of  the  lot,  the  one  most  seldom 
used.  It  puzzled  him,  none-the-less.  And  the  poisons 
of  fatigue  were  beginning  to  course  like  acids  through 
his  over-exerted  body.  He  watched  a  white  house 
against  the  green  clump  of  trees  on  the  shore-line. 
They  were  holding  their  own.  They  might  even  have 
gained  a  little.  But  at  that  rate  of  advance,  he  realized, 
the  fight  was  practically  a  hopeless  one. 

He  asked  the  girl  to  shift  her  hand  to  his  other  shoul 
der,  and  when  she  had  obeyed  him  he  once  more  struck 
out,  this  time  with  jaw  set  and  laboured  breath  through 
the  distended  nostrils.  It's  all  quite  useless,  a  voice  some 
where  at  the  back  of  his  brain  kept  saying  to  him.  And 
as  he  fought  on,  foot  by  foot,  he  had  to  warn  himself 
not  to  give  way  to  panic.  But  he  began  to  wonder  if 
death  by  drowning  were  painful.  He  even  began  to 
count  his  strokes,  saying  to  himself :  "  I'll  do  one  hun 
dred  more !  I  must  do  one  hundred  more ! "  Then 
fighting  against  the  weariness  that  was  making  move 
ment  a  torture,  he  said  bitterly,  "  And  a  hundred  more  — 
a  hundred  —  whatever  happens !  " 

But  there  had  to  be  an  end.  It  was  not  humanly  pos 
sible  to  keep  on.  Yet  his  spirit  revolted  against  that 
end.  It  seemed  too  needless,  too  unjust,  too  gratuitous. 
That  revolt  broke  through  the  mist  of  indifferency  en- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  65 

gulfing  him.  It  prompted  him  to  a  moment  or  two  of 
galvanic  struggle  that  left  him  weaker  than  ever.  Then 
the  blackness  once  more  descended  upon  him. 

The  girl,  turning  her  face  sideways  against  the  slap  of 
the  waves,  was  still  alert  enough  to  understand  that  black 
ness  which  had  written  its  record  on  his  face.  He  was 
breathing  blubberingly,  gasping  and  gagging,  trying  to 
say,  "  Ten  more  "  and  still  again,  "  Ten  more." 

"  Owen,  let  me  go,"  she  said  in  a  voice  shaking  with 
the  chill  that  tortured  her  body.  "  Don't  bother  .  .  . 
with  me !  Please  don't !  " 

"  Ten  more !  "  gasped  Storrow,  without  answering 
her.  It  was  a  beautiful  blue,  that  robin-egg  sky  that 
would  so  soon  be  shut  out  from  them. 

"  Then  if  we  must  .  .  .  must  go,  Owen  ...  I  want 
to  tell  you  .  .  .  tell  you  I  "... 

A  slap  of  brine  shut  off  her  words. 

"  Ten  more,"  gurgled  the  man  who  wondered  why  all 
sensation  had  gone  out  of  his  body.  They  would  have  to 
go  together,  of  course.  It  didn't  seem  fair.  It 
didn't  — 

He  suddenly  stopped  swimming.  He  shifted  and 
turned,  treading  water  again,  so  that  he  could  slip  one 
leaden  arm  about  the  puzzled  girl.  She  stared  into  his 
face  as  he  drew  her  close  in  to  his  side.  She  saw  a  fool 
ish-looking  ghost  of  a  smile  on  that  wet  face. 

"It's  all  right,"  he  gasped.  ''They're  coming  —  in  a 
boat!" 

He  had  heard  the  shout  over  his  shoulder  and  knew  it 
was  now  merely  a  matter  of  waiting.  There  was  no  fur 
ther  need  for  even  his  earlier  jealous  husbanding  of 
strength,  for  that  meticulous  treasuring  of  effort.  He 
held  her  close,  with  her  tremulous  blue  chin  just  above 
the  surface  of  the  water,  rejoicing  in  some  wayward  and 
wild  sense  of  companionship  at  having  her  so  close. 

But  he  had  no  time  to  think  further  about  that,  for 
the  boat  was  beside  them.  Storrow,  ducking  an  oar, 


66  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

caught  and  held  the  gunwale  over  which  three  ex 
cited  youths  were  shouting  contradictory  commands  and 
suggestions.  It  was,  after  all,  a  much  older  story  to  the 
man  in  the  water  than  to  the  youths  in  the  boat.  But  it 
took  a  minute  or  two  to  get  his  breath  back. 

"  Two  of  you  come  to  the  stern,"  he  commanded. 
"  Now  lift  her  easily  —  easily  there !  No,  never  mind 
me ;  trim  your  boat.  And  thank  God  you  brought  those 
blankets  with  you." 

There  was  a  perilous  moment  or  two  of  tipping  and 
bobbing  and  canting,  an  excited  clutching  at  wet  clothing, 
followed  by  an  awkward  but  effective  heave  of  a  limp 
body  into  the  boat. 

"  The  Commodore  sent  this  flask  of  brandy,"  explained 
the  oldest  of  the  boys  as  Storrow  drew  himself  aboard, 
dripping  like  a  Newfoundland-dog.  There  were,  he  saw, 
an  absurd  number  of  blankets.  So  he  wound  a  three-fold 
layer  of  them  about  the  shivering  girl.  Then  he  took  her 
in  his  arms,  holding  the  brandy-flask  to  her  lips  and  com 
pelling  her  to  drink.  She  swallowed  the  fiery  liquor 
obediently,  until  she  choked  and  could  swallow  no  more. 
Then  the  shivering  stopped,  and  with  a  contented  stirring 
or  two  of  the  body  she  lay  closer  to  him. 

"  You'd  better  take  some  of  that  yourself,"  suggested 
one  of  the  youths  as  he  draped  a  blanket  about  Storrow's 
wet  shoulders. 

Storrow  drank  from  the  flask,  grateful  for  the  sense  of 
warmth  and  well-being  that  coursed  through  his  body. 
He  became  conscious  of  an  inter-communicating  warmth, 
too,  between  the  blanket-wrapped  figure  in  his  arms  and 
himself.  It  was  not  unpleasant  to  hold  her  there.  He 
held  her  in  his  arms,  in  fact,  all  the  way  back  to  the  boat- 
landing.  There,  still  thick-headed  from  the  brandy  he 
had  swallowed,  he  quite  overlooked  the  fact  that  a  wel 
coming  crowd  was  cheering  him.  It  took  all  his  atten 
tion  to  keep  the  moist  blanket  about  his  half-clad  figure 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  67 

and  at  the  same  time  carry  the  girl  and  himself  with 
dignity. 

After  a  cup  of  hot  coffee  and  a  change  into  com 
mandeered  apparel  that  fitted  him  none  too  well,  Storrow 
found  himself  the  possessor  of  a  clearing  head  and  a  body 
that  ached  acutely.  He  found  himself  also  a  little  lonely 
and  restless  in  spirit,  since  the  entire  household  seemed 
preoccupied  with  the  girl  who  was  being  put  to  bed  and 
wrapped  in  hot  blankets.  As  he  sat  in  a  huge  chair  on 
the  huge  piazza  Medberry  brought  him  a  glass  of  old 
port.  Storrow  tried  it,  found  it  distasteful,  and  was  just 
putting  it  to  one  side  when  the  doctor  who  had  been  sent 
for  stopped,  on  his  way  out,  to  shake  hands  with  the 
younger  man.  His  quick  scrutiny  of  the  tanned  face 
with  the  strong  white  teeth  soon  assured  him  that  his 
services  would  not  be  needed  there. 

"  How  is  she  ?  "  asked  Storrow. 

"  She's  asleep,"  explained  the  other.  "  And  she's 
swallowed  enough  three-star  brandy,  I  imagine,  to  put 
most  of  us  asleep,"  he  added  as  he  started  out  to  his  car. 

Charlotte's  sleep,  however,  was  not  a  prolonged  one. 
Within  an  hour  she  was  awake  again,  drowsily  but  per 
emptorily  demanding  that  Owen  be  sent  to  her. 

Storrow  found  her  very  flushed  and  over-burdened 
with  clothes  but  very  small-looking  in  the  big  apple-wood 
bed.  She  held  out  a  hand  as  he  crossed  hesitatingly  to 
her  side. 

"You're  all  right?"  he  inadequately  inquired.  She 
turned  her  head  so  as  to  see  him  better. 

"Oh,  Owen!"  she  said.  She  spoke  rather  thickly. 
Her  eyes  filled  with  tears  and  she  seemed  unable  to  go  on. 
She  pushed  aside  some  of  the  over-burdening  clothes. 

"  You  saved  my  life! "  she  said  in  a  whisper  which  she 
could  not  keep  from  being  tremulous.  Her  hand  tight 
ened  about  his  big  fingers.  She  seemed  to  be  pulling  him 
towards  her  as  her  eyes  filled  with  tears  again. 


68  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  OH,  that  was  nothing,"  he  protested,  fuming  brick- 
colour  as  she  lifted  both  lean  arms  and  pulled  his  abashed 
head  down  close  until  it  was  pressed  against  her  shoulder. 

"  It  was  everything,  Owen,"  protested  the  girl,  who 
still  kept  her  hands  locked  about  his  neck. 

He  no  longer  made  an  effort  to  draw  away  as  the  lean 
young  arms  strained  him  abandonedly  to  her  breast.  But 
he  was  stung  into  a  meditative  sort  of  impassivity  by 
the  thought  of  the  coincidence  of  his  face  being  fanned 
by  a  woman's  breath,  faintly  redolent  of  alcohol,  as  that 
woman's  eyes  gazed  almost  hungrily  into  his  own.  He 
touched  his  lips  to  the  flushed  face  that  lay  back  so  close 
to  his.  That  kiss,  however,  approached  dangerously 
close  to  the  kind  one  gives  the  dead.  The  arms  about  his 
neck  tightened  convulsively. 

"  Oh,  Owen,  I  love  you,"  she  murmured  as  she  buried 
her  face  in  the  hollow  of  his  neck. 

"  You  mustn't  say  that,"  he  told  her,  still  with  the 
barricading  touch  of  pity  in  his  voice,  with  the  unrest  in 
his  heart  which  the  timber-wolf  knows  when  hostile  shad 
ows  creep  between  him  and  his  cover. 

"  Whatever  happens,  I'll  always  love  you,"  she  pro 
tested,  with  still  another  gush  of  uncontrolled  tears.  And 
he  was  compelled  gently  but  firmly  to  disengage  those 
blindly  appropriating  arms,  for  Charlotte's  mother  had 
come  quietly  into  the  room  and  stood  viewing  the  scene 
with  a  look  of  gathering  perplexity  on  her  face. 

"  You  must  take  this  while  it's  hot,"  she  quietly  an 
nounced  to  the  girl  on  the  bed. 

She  was  still  leaning  over  that  bed  when  she  spoke  to 
Storrow.  "  You're  a  brave  boy,  Owen,"  she  said  with 
a  tremor  of  feeling  which  she  seemed  unable  to  control. 
But  she  preferred  to  keep  her  face  averted  so  that  he 
might  not  see  the  emotion  in  her  customarily  unpartici- 
pating  eyes.  It  was  Charlotte  who  turned  her  head  and 
glanced  at  him,  seeming  to  understand  just  how  deeply 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  69 

he  would  resent  that  word  of  "  boy,"  with  all  its  betray 
als  of  an  immovable  but  benignant  condescension.  And 
it  wasn't  until  she  heard  his  careless  small  laugh  of  capi 
tulation  that  her  brow  cleared  again. 


CHAPTER   SIX 

STORROW  did  not  analyse  his  propulsion  for  flight. 
He  had  not  even  acknowledged  it  to  be  flight.  But 
when,  before  the  end  of  his  week,  he  found  a 
studio  very  much  to  his  liking  in  a  ruinous-fronted  old 
building  not  far  from  Madison  Square,  in  East  Twenty- 
Fourth  Street,  he  magnified  that  occasion  into  a  chance 
which  it  would  be  calamitous  to  miss. 

Two  days  later  he  moved  back  to  the  city.  It  was  not, 
however,  until  the  migration  had  been  effected  that  he 
made  an  effort  to  unedge  the  precipitancy  of  his  move 
ments  by  a  carefully  worded  note  of  explanation  to  Au 
gusta  Kirkner,  a  note  which  brought  no  response  from 
the  older  woman.  It  was  Charlotte,  in  fact,  who  three 
days  later  sent  a  brief  but  friendly  letter  back  to  Stor- 
row's  studio,  wishing  him  happiness  in  his  new  surround 
ings  and  success  in  the  work  which  she  knew  must  mean 
so  much  to  him. 

Storrow,  at  the  time,  was  too  preoccupied  to  give  much 
thought  to  this  message.  The  slightly  autumnal-looking 
and  hollow-chested  poster-artist  from  whom  he  was  so 
precipitously  releasing  the  huge  sky-lighted  room  that 
was  to  be  his  home  had  accepted  a  call  to  draw  fashion- 
plates  for  a  Chicago  mail-order  house  and  was  glad 
enough  to  dispose  of  her  furniture  en  bloc.  But  she  was 
less  happy,  Storrow  realized,  in  leaving  quarters  with 
which,  apparently,  so  much  of  her  life  had  been  linked. 
He  found  it  easy  enough  to  understand  this,  for  already 
he  could  feel  the  appeal  of  the  place.  It  was  spacious, 
sequestered,  amazingly  quiet,  a  kernel  of  achieved  com- 

70 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  71 

fort  in  a  misleadingly  rough  husk  of  disorder.  It  was 
exactly  the  sort  of  place  he  was  in  need  of. 

"  It's  all  yours  now,"  the  loose-lipped  poster-girl  some 
what  pensively  explained  to  him  as  she  watched  the  last 
of  her  trunks  being  carried  away.  "  All  except  that  Rus 
sian  samovar  on  the  mantel  there.  You'll  have  to  re 
turn  that  to  your  next-door  neighbour  when  he  gets  back 
from  Paris." 

She  spoke  casually,  but  Storrow's  sensitive  nostrils 
seemed  assailed  by  the  aroma  of  some  undefined  and 
faded  romance. 

"  Then  I  ought  to  know  his  name,"  he  suggested  as  he 
stood  at  her  side  and  joined  her  in  staring  at  the  un 
wieldy  copper  urn. 

"  His  name  is  Alan  Vibbard,"  the  girl  answered,  with 
out  looking  away  from  the  samovar.  And  again,  as  he 
caught  the  ghost  of  a  sigh  from  her  lips,  he  felt  that  he 
had  stumbled  across  the  borders  of  some  ghostly  and 
time-worn  liaison,  worlds  away  from  him  and  his  trivial 
interests.  He  was  more  impressed  than  ever  by  the  con 
trast  between  the  unkempt  hallways  and  the  ordered 
homeliness  of  the  high-ceilinged  room,  where  the  panel 
ling  of  a  solitary  door  so  abruptly  divided  neglect  from 
comfort.  It  even  occurred  to  him  that  this  boney  and 
loose-lipped  woman  with  whom  life  had  not  dealt  over- 
kindly  must  still  hold  in  the  core  of  her  ungainly  body 
some  secret  chamber  of  quietness  and  grace.  She  had 
called  herself  a  "  style  sniper,"  he  remembered,  since  most 
of  her  time  and  energy  had  been  diverted  to  the  illicit  ap 
propriation,  by  means  of  a  quick  eye  and  a  quicker  pencil, 
of  newly  imported  dress-models  not  yet  divulged  to  the 
trade.  It  had  not  been  altogether  honest,  this  spying  and 
poaching  on  the  preserves  of  the  city's  kinglier  cos 
tumiers,  and  Storrow  wondered  if  that  looseness  of  con 
duct  stood  typified  in  her  almost  vulpine  looseness  of  lip. 
Then  he  fell  to  wondering  if  he  too  would  grow  old  be 
tween  those  walls  and  fall  into  the  habit  of  staring  back- 


ward  instead  of  forward  and  make  room  in  turn  for  some 
unconcerned  young  newcomer. 

"  I  hope  you'll  be  happy  here,"  ventured  the  woman 
from  the  doorway,  softened  apparently  by  the  betraying 
shadow  of  thought  on  his  own  troubled  brow. 

"  I  want  to  do  a  lot  of  work  here,"  qualified  Storrow, 
seeking  protection  within  his  shell  of  impersonality.  Yet 
as  he  looked  up  at  the  wistful-eyed  woman  in  the  strong 
side-light  he  was  still  again  reminded  of  the  fact,  and 
almost  jealously  reminded  of  it,  that  much  history  had 
been  recorded  between  those  old  walls.  It  was  history 
which  he  could  and  would  never  know.  Yet,  during  the 
next  few  days,  he  was  not  ungrateful  for  that  sense  of 
immersion  in  unrelated  antiquities.  It  served,  above  all 
things,  to  shut  him  off  from  his  own  immediate  past. 
That  was  something  of  which  he  preferred  not  to  think. 

It  was  not  until  the  second  week  in  his  new  studio  that 
he  made  a  discovery,  small  in  itself,  yet  significant  enough 
to  send  thought  trooping  back,  again  and  again,  to  the 
heavy-lipped  woman  who  had  stood  so  wistfully  study 
ing  the  borrowed  samovar  on  the  mantel.  When  he 
lifted  an  oblong  of  imitation  Gobelin  that  hung  on  his 
east  wall  he  found  under  it  a  door,  a  communicating  door 
which  unmistakably  opened  on  the  studio  next  to  his  own. 
This  door  had  once  been  covered  and  sealed  with  wall 
paper.  That  flimsy  seal,  however,  had  been  broken  apart. 
Storrow,  nettled  by  a  curiosity  by  no  means  as  rare  as  he 
imagined,  pushed  back  the  heavy  iron  bolt  in  front  of 
him  and  tried  the  door.  But  to  his  disappointment  — 
a  disappointment  which  was  just  as  promptly  followed  by 
satisfaction  —  he  found  the  door  held  shut  by  what  was 
obviously  a  similar  bolt  on  its  other  side.  So  he  replaced 
the  sliding  bar  of  metal,  redraped  the  tapestry  screen, 
and  once  again  sniffed  the  musty  aroma  of  tawdry  and 
time-yellowed  romance. 

The  mood  for  sustained  work  had  not  yet  returned  to 
him,  so  he  marked  time  by  renewing  his  aimless  wander- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  73 

ings  about  the  heat-stricken  city.  As  he  roamed  about, 
once  more  astride  the  twin  coursers  of  Curiosity  and 
Caprice,  he  felt  little  of  the  discomfort  which  still  left 
Manhattan  so  oppressive  to  others.  Yet  that  city,  he 
could  see,  was  enduring  the  last  of  its  hot  spell  very  much 
as  cities  endure  a  siege.  Daily  its  unsheltered  planes  of 
stone  and  brick  and  asphalt  were  swept  by  a  brazen 
faced  flame-thrower  that  became  merciful  only  with 
nightfall.  Daily  the  canyons  of  the  treeless  streets  were 
rilled  with  an  invisible  poison-gas  which  left  people  too 
listless  to  fight  against  further  assault.  They  merely  en 
dured,  and  waited,  and  prayed  for  a  change  of  wind.  It 
was  the  humidity,  everybody  about  Storrow  kept  ex 
plaining,  the  windless  and  saturated  air  which  made  cloth 
ing  hang  limp  and  heavy  on  the  languid  body  and  evoked 
a  rank  incense  from  any  region  where  human  beings  were 
foolish  enough  to  pack  themselves  close.  They  went 
about  moodily,  as  a  rule,  carrying  coats  and  hats,  cover 
ing  their  limbs  with  the  lightest  garments  that  could  be 
used. 

This  was  harvest-time  for  Storrow,  whose  vigorous 
young  body  faced  that  excessive  heat  without  any  great 
distress.  He  drifted  about  the  city  as  free  as  the  wind, 
eager  for  those  pictorial  aspects  of  life  which  only  torrid 
weather  brought  to  the  open.  He  watched  the  weltering 
thousands  streaming  to  the  recreation-piers,  the  heat- 
weary  ghetto-dwellers  crowding  the  withered  grass  of  the 
open  parks,  the  half-clad  children  swarming  about  the 
dripping  hydrants  and  the  hokey-pokey  barrows,  the  bare- 
throated  men  and  women  who  moved  languidly  about  in 
the  shadows,  or  sat  smoking  and  fanning  in  open  door 
ways.  When  his  legs  grew  tired  he  sat  amongst  them 
and  rested.  When  hunger  assailed  him  he  dropped  into 
some  out-of-the-way  little  restaurant  and  ate,  forgetting 
the  heat  in  the  rich  shadows  born  of  the  never-ending 
battle  between  drawn  blinds  and  beleaguering  sun,  revel 
ling  in  the  accidental  beauty  of  some  indifferent-eyed 


74  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

young  waitress  with  the  flimsiest  of  cambric  stretched 
across  what  might  have  been  the  pointed  breasts  of  an 
Artemis. 

It  was  in  one  of  these  places,  known  as  "  Chop-House 
Jake's,"  that  Storrow  had  stumbled  upon  a  surprisingly 
appetizing  luncheon.  He  looked  up  from  a  broiled  por 
terhouse  which  he  had  picked  bare  to  the  bone  to  find  him 
self  being  surveyed  by  a  pair  of  studious  and  half  ironical 
eyes. 

"  This  weather  doesn't  seem  to  have  interfered  much 
with  your  appetite,  young  man !  "  the  stranger  observed, 
in  a  crisp  yet  companionable  voice. 

"  That  was  a  steak  to  make  you  forget  about  weather," 
countered  Storrow.  He  found  himself  confronted  by  a 
spare  and  lanky  man  anywhere  between  thirty-five  and 
forty-five,  a  fastidiously  apparelled  and  ascetic-looking 
man  with  hair  turned  iron-grey  over  the  ears,  humorous 
eyes,  and  a  rather  grim  mouth. 

"  I  come  here  for  'em  occasionally,"  he  acknowledged. 
'  They're  as  good  as  you'll  get  in  the  city."  He  di 
gressed  into  a  light-hearted  but  comprehensive  description 
of  Manhattan's  eating-places.  "  I'm  saying  all  this,"  he 
concluded,  "  because  I  know  you  haven't  been  here  very 
long." 

'What  makes  you  think  that?"  demanded  Stor 
row,  with  a  smile  to  unedge  the  brusqueness  of  the 
question. 

"  By  that  coat  of  tan,"  declared  the  other.  The 
younger  man  thereupon  explained  how  and  where  he  had 
acquired  that  Madura-brown  skin. 

"  That's  great,"  exclaimed  the  older  man,  with  a  quick 
and  unlooked-for  thump  of  enthusiasm.  "  My  name's 
Hardy,  by  the  way." 

"  Not  Hardy  the  novelist?  "  asked  Storrow. 

"Merely  one  of  'em  —  the  little  one,"  retorted  the 
other. 

"  Mine's    Storrow,"    less    easily    acknowledged    the 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  75 

younger  man,  feeling  less  lonely  in  that  vast  city  of  un 
known  faces. 

"  I  hope  we're  going  to  be  friends,"  announced  Hardy 
from  the  serener  plateaus  of  experience.  "  And  I  sup 
pose  you're  here  for  work,  or  you  wouldn't  be  on  this 
gridiron  of  an  island  at  the  end  of  August.  I've  got 
a  play  going  on  myself.  But  it's  going  to  be  a  failure." 

"Why  a  failure?" 

"  Another  case  of  too  many  cooks  and  the  broth 
spoiled.  I'm  only  the  author,  you  see.  So  all  I  have 
to  do  is  sit  back  and  watch  the  doctors  amputate !  It 
hits  you  harder  than  ninety-six  in  the  shade,  after  you've 
sweated  blood  to  give  'em  something  more  than  the  waffle- 
iron  product." 

They  talked  on,  for  half  an  hour,  through  the  com 
panionable  haze  of  tobacco-smoke,  until  Hardy  detected 
signs  of  restiveness  in  his  younger  friend.  This  restive- 
ness  was  really  based  on  the  thirst  of  the  woodsman's 
lungs  for  unpolluted  fresh  air. 

"Busy  today?"  casually  inquired  the  novelist. 

Storrow  acknowledged  that  he  was  not. 

"  Then  what's  the  matter  with  dropping  up  to  my  digs, 
over  on  the  Avenue.  It's  cool  there,  and  I've  some  early 
Wolf  Thompson  animal  sketches  that  will  interest  you." 

Storrow  was  glad  to  go.  He  liked  that  older  and 
kindly-eyed  man.  He  enjoyed  that  man's  talk  as  they 
sauntered  across  the  city,  skirted  Greenwich  Village, 
invaded  Washington  Square,  and  approached  the  nar 
rower  but  more  resplendent  canyon  of  Fifth  Avenue. 

Hardy  did  most  of  the  talking.  He  ridiculed  the  com 
mercialized  bohemianism  of  "  The  Village,"  with  its 
bobbed  hair  and  its  bad  art,  its  anarchistic  free  verse  and 
its  still  freer  sex  relationships.  He  wrung  a  laugh,  too, 
from  the  self-imposed  pauperism  of  the  MacDougall  Alley 
colony  and  the  convivial  anchoritism  of  "  The  Mews." 
There  were,  of  course,  the  producers  as  well  as  the  po 
seurs,  the  trail-blazers  as  well  as  the  stump-jumpers,  but 


76  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

the  former  were  much  too  busy  for  attitudinizing.  Stor- 
row's  guide  paused  long  enough  to  point  out  a  group  or 
two  of  Italian  children  in  the  Square,  and  the  balanced 
red-brick  colonial  of  Henry  James'  renown,  and  the 
trade-doomed  architecture  of  the  Avenue  debo aching  up 
through  its  ferruginous  forest  of  skyscrapers.  A  very 
passable  omelette  he  solemnly  explained,  could  still  be 
bought  at  The  Brevoort. 

"  I  like  the  old  Street,"  Hardy  acknowledged  with 
genuine  feeling  as  they  went  side  by  side  up  the  Avenue ; 
"  it's  one  of  the  few  we  have  with  a  soul  of  its  own." 
It  seemed  an  older  and  sedater  city  in  which  Storrow  now 
found  himself,  a  city  of  quiet  side-streets  and  window- 
boxes  and  well-scrubbed  marble  steps,  of  polished  brass 
knockers  on  white-enamelled  doors,  of  bronze  handrails 
leading  up  to  panelled  mahogany  portals,  of  red  brick 
over-run  with  ivy,  of  unpretentious  three-storey  homes 
mildly  ornamented  with  tubbed  evergreens  and  tiny  quad 
rangles  of  turf  and  roses  and  chrysanthemums.  And 
over  all  was  the  friendly  and  unsolicited  tone  of  time,  de 
pressing  Storrow  at  the  same  moment  that  it  engaged 
him,  dimly  disturbing  him  by  its  unalleviated  air  of  re 
moteness,  reminding  him  as  it  did  of  movements  and 
civilizations  of  which  he  had  not  been  and  never  could  be 
a  part.  He  even  saw  a  walled  rector's  garden  that  made 
him  think  of  England,  an  oblong  of  greensward  with  a 
fountain  at  its  centre  and  a  flower-bordered  pool  in  which 
little  silver  and  golden  fishes  swam  about.  But  the  epi 
sodic  soft  odours  of  that  garden  evaporated  in  the  univer 
sal  grim  smell  of  exhaust-gases  from  the  countless  pass 
ing  motor-cars. 

Hardy  was  still  talking  when  they  stopped  to  turn  up 
the  sandstone  steps  of  what  had  once  been  a  millionaire's 
mansion.  But  the  receding  tides  of  fashion  had  long 
since  left  it  on  the  dull  siltage  of  the  roomer  and  the 
studio-renter. 

"  Here's  where  I  hang  out,"  he  explained.     "  It  has  its 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  77 

drawbacks,  but  it's  worth  the  noise  and  the  dust  from 
those  eternal  cars." 

Storrow  found  Hardy's  apartment  much  simpler  than 
he  had  expected.  There  was  no  clutter  of  rugs  and  armour 
and  old  brass.  Hardy's  work-room,  in  fact,  would  have 
seemed  bald,  but  for  its  revolving  stand  of  reference- 
books.  It  had  the  appearance  of  being  organized  for 
work,  and  work  alone.  Its  almost  commercial  atmos 
phere  was  increased  by  the  presence  of  an  elaborate  filing- 
cabinet  and  an  electric-fan  on  its  shelf  above  the  sten 
ographer's  table.  It  was  only  in  the  living-room  to  the 
front,  overlooking  the  Avenue,  that  Storrow  found  some 
slight  tendency  towards  luxuriousness.  On  the  walls  of 
that  room  he  saw  a  pastel  by  Blum,  three  Zorn  etchings, 
and  a  Carrol  Beckwith  portrait  of  Hardy  himself  as  he 
must  have  appeared  some  ten  or  twelve  years  earlier  in 
life.  What  caught  the  visitor's  attention,  however,  was 
a  small  genre  canvas  in  a  faded  gold  frame.  It  showed 
a  nude  woman  sitting  relaxed  on  the  edge  of  a  model- 
throne,  staring  at  a  wide  studio-window  drenched  with 
rain.  She  stared  out  through  the  grey  light  listlessly,  dis 
consolately,  lazily.  There  was  ennui  in  the  thick-shoul 
dered  figure  with  its  meditative  eyes  and  its  over-burden 
ing  mass  of  dark  hair,  the  momentary  lassitude  of  a  body 
so  vital  that  it  carried  a  touch  of  animality. 

But  what  brought  Storrow  up  short  was  its  quick 
power  to  recall  another  and  a  quite  different  scene,  the 
scene  of  a  half -clad  figure  sitting  abstractedly  on  a  fire- 
escape  slowly  winding  up  the  selfsame  mass  of  dark  hair 
with  the  selfsame  milky  white  fingers. 

"  Who  did  this  ?  "  he  asked.  He  tried  to  speak  casu 
ally.  But  he  could  feel  his  pulses  quicken.  He  was  pos 
sessed  of  a  faint  sinking  feeling  somewhere  under  his 
breastbone. 

"  That's  one  of  Vibbard's,"  his  host  said,  standing  close 
behind  him.  "  He  called  it  A  Rainy  Morning." 

"Alan  Vibbard's?" 


78  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

Hardy  nodded.  "  That's  the  sort  of  thing  he  could  do 
to  perfection.  It's  a  sort  of  great-grandchild  of  Manet's 
Breakfast  On  The  Grass." 

Storrow  was  more  and  more  disturbed  by  the  aura  of 
reminiscence  about  the  white-fleshed  figure  on  the  canvas. 
It  brought  to  him  a  sense  of  betrayal  which  he  found  it 
impossible  to  define.  A  vague  impression  of  shame 
mingled  with  his  curiosity  as  he  studied  it  still  more 
closely. 

"  It's  unhealthy,"  he  commented  aloud. 

"  That's  what  Vibbard  meant  it  to  be,"  retorted  Hardy. 
"  But  Vibbard  loves  flesh  so  much  that  he  lost  his  sermon 
in  the  joy  of  painting  it." 

"  Well,  it's  a  joy  I  can't  share  in." 

"  But  you  can  at  least  see  the  unhealthiness  isn't  in  the 
girl,"  argued  the  older  man.  "  It's  in  the  artist." 

"  I  don't  happen  to  know  the  artist." 

"  But  I  do.  And  I  can  understand  how  that  jaded 
hedonist  from  Harlem  responded  to  trumpeting  youth 
like  this.  It  caught  Rodin  the  same  way,  in  his  old  age. 
It  makes  the  thing  a  human  document.  That's  one  reason 
why  I'm  rather  fond  of  it." 

"  But  where'd  he  get  the  woman?  "  demanded  Storrow, 
with  his  heart  in  his  mouth.  He  compelled  himself  to 
turn  away,  as  he  spoke,  with  a  parade  of  indifference. 

"  Model,  I  suppose,"  admitted  Hardy  as  he  pointed  out 
a  row  of  silver  birches  by  Metcalf.  If  he  noticed  his 
visitor's  preoccupation  he  gave  no  further  sign  of  it. 
Nor  did  he  comment  on  the  fact  that  Storrow,  as  he  took 
his  departure,  after  an  abstracted  inspection  of  the  Wolf 
Thompson  drawings,  stopped  once  more  before  the  Vib 
bard  canvas  in  the  faded  gold  frame.  Yet  he  saw,  or 
thought  he  saw,  what  was  almost  a  stricken  look  in  the 
studious  blue  eyes  of  the  younger  man. 


CHAPTER   SEVEN 

STORROW  found  contact  with  Hardy  to  be  both 
stimulating  and  disquieting.  He  honoured  that 
older  man  for  his  accomplishments  and  he  liked 
him  for  his  frank  spirit  of  friendliness.  But  he  left  that 
older  man's  presence  carrying  with  him  an  undefined  and 
accordingly  an  incontestable  impression  of  his  own  callow 
and  inexperienced  youth.  He  was  a  beginner,  without 
standing,  with  everything  still  to  do.  Hardy  was  right; 
New  York  was  made  for  workers.  He  remembered  the 
novelist's  repeated  advice  to  "  organize,"  even  for  a  life 
of  art.  For  organization  eliminated  waste,  and  artists, 
above  all,  were  apt  to  be  wasters.  Storrow,  however, 
had  no  intention  of  being  what  Hardy  had  called  "  a 
studio  lizard."  The  hunger  for  power  was  strong  in  his 
vigorous  young  body.  He  already  was  old  enough  at  the 
game  to  know  that  triumph  came  through  toil,  and  toil 
alone.  He  had  lost  his  earlier  illusions  as  to  any  mirac 
ulous  accession  to  fame.  That  was  a  matter  for  romance 
alone.  He  was  willing  enough  to  knuckle  down.  He  was 
in  the  midst  of  workers,  and  he  was  glad  to  be  one  of 
them.  It  made  him  forget  his  loneliness.  It  kept  him 
from  remembering  what  he  told  himself  he  must  not 
remember. 

Hardy,  a  week  later,  found  him  deep  in  his  modelling, 
serious-eyed  and  smudged  with  wet  clay.  The  Canadian 
was  glad  to  see  the  older  man,  to  explain  his  work,  even 
to  ask  the  other's  advice.  But  Hardy's  eyes,  if  still  kindly, 
remained  unparticipating.  Storrow  was  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  his  new-found  friend  was  not  in  sympa- 

79 


80  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

thy  with  his  work.  So,  ill-at-ease,  he  talked  of  other  and 
lighter  things.  It  was  not,  in  fact,  until  Hardy  rose  to  go 
that  they  seemed  to  reach  solid  ground  again. 

"  I  think  I  can  see  what  you're  trying  to  reach  here/' 
the  novelist  said  as  he  paused  before  Storrow's  half- 
finished  modelling  of  a  she-bear  standing  on  guard  over 
her  cubs.  "  But  aren't  you  going  the  wrong  way  about 
it?" 

"  Is  there  any  other  way?  "  demanded  Storrow,  already 
depressed  by  a  suspicion  of  wasted  effort.  He  felt  the 
need  for  guidance,  felt  it  keenly  and  continually,  yet  he 
nursed  the  instinctive  distaste  of  the  solitary  worker  for 
the  criticism  of  others. 

"  That's  something  I've  been  wondering  about,"  ac 
knowledged  Hardy  with  his  capitulating  smile.  "  I've 
been  wondering  if  this  turn  of  yours  towards  sculpture 
isn't  more  of  an  accident  than  you  imagine.  Take  these 
animal  groups  you've  done,  for  instance!  They're  more 
episodic  than  they  are  statuesque.  They're  more  dra 
matic  than  they  are  plastic.  It  seems  to  me  that  all  along 
you've  really  been  trying  to  tell  a  story.  Look  at  your 
Last  Of  The  Pack  there !  That's  almost  pure  narrative. 
I  should  think  you  could  have  expressed  all  that  in  a  writ 
ten  story  about  a  wolf,  and  had  a  freer  swing  with  your 
material." 

"  But  when  I've  tried  to  write,  it's  always  been  a 
failure." 

"  By  no  means.  You've  been  trying  to  write  in  clay 
here,  and  they're  not  altogether  failures.  You've  been 
trying  to  tell  a  story  without  knowing  it." 

"  The  wild-life  stuff  has  to  be  a  story,"  argued  Storrow. 

"  Deming  doesn't  make  it  that." 

"  Deming  worked  more  with  the  Indian  than  with 
animals." 

"  But  you've  picked  the  hardest  medium  in  the  world 
to  tell  your  story,"  contended  Hardy.  "  And  now  I 
think  of  it,  why  did  you  pick  the  wild  life  stuff?  " 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  81 

"  It  was  what  I  happened  to  be  thrown  up  against," 
explained  the  younger  man.  He  told,  somewhat  reluct 
antly,  of  the  order  for  the  Tecumseh  statue. 

"  I've  heard  Modrynski  talk  about  those  mortuary-urn 
committees,"  retorted  Hardy.  "  They  regard  the  nude 
as  indecent  and  get  their  art-ideas  from  mausoleum  tab 
lets.  They'll  only  break  your  heart,  my  boy.  And 
there's  no  hope  in  that  type  of  work.  It  deals  with  the 
dead,  and  not  with  life.  And  you'll  want  life.  And  the 
more  knowledge  of  life  you  gather  up  the  more  you'll 
ache  to  interpret  it  and  organize  it.  The  more  you  see 
the  light  the  more  you'll  want  to  pass  on  the  torch.  And 
what  chance  will  mere  modelling  ever  give  you?  " 

Storrow  felt,  for  a  moment,  that  his  new  friend  was 
cutting  the  ground  from  under  his  feet.  And  his  help 
lessness  was  increased  by  the  discovery  that  he  was  listen 
ing  to  certain  doubts  of  his  own  which  he  had  always  been 
half-afraid  to  articulate. 

"But  haven't  you  ever  wanted  to  write?"  demanded 
Hardy.  "  Haven't  you  felt  a  story  in  your  system,  a 
story  that  kept  trying  to  get  itself  into  words  ?  " 

"  Just  one,"  acknowledged  the  young  artist,  without 
enthusiasm. 

"What  was  it?" 

Storrow  hesitated.  But  the  air  of  cool  capability  about 
Hardy,  the  light  of  earnestness  in  the  already  slightly 
faded  eyes,  gave  him  the  courage  to  go  on. 

"  I  always  wanted  to  write  the  story  of  a  man  and  a 
woman  thrown  empty-handed  into  the  wilderness,  tossed 
through  some  trick  of  fate  into  our  northern  Barren 
Grounds,  for  instance,  as  naked  as  Adam  and  Eve  turned 
out  of  the  Garden!  " 

"And  survive?"  asked  Hardy,  a  trifle  breathlessly. 

"  Yes,  survive." 

"But  how?" 

"  By  human  wit,  or  wood-craft,  or  whatever  you  want 
to  call  it,"  was  the  answer. 


82  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"Great!"  cried  Hardy.  "Do  it!  But,  why  the 
North?" 

"  Because  the  North's  the  only  country  I  know  well 
enough  for  the  work." 

"  That's  right,"  admitted  the  older  man  after  a  moment 
of  meditation.  "  And  the  North  is  new.  It  would  be  a 
change  from  the  over-worked  tropical-island  setting. 
That  side  of  it's  been  done  to  death,  and  is  mostly  moon 
shine,  any  way." 

"  But  I  don't  even  know  how  to  approach  the  thing," 
explained  Storrow.  "  I've  got  notes  enough,  and  ideas 
enough,  but  I  wouldn't  know  how  to  handle  them." 

"  Organize !  "  shouted  Hardy,  falling  back  on  his  fa 
vourite  word  again.  "  And  if  you  get  really  stuck,  send 
for  me.  For  I'm  more  interested  in  that  man  and  woman 
of  yours  than  in  these  menagerie  things.  And  you'll  find 
most  of  the  world  ready  to  back  me  up  in  this !  " 

Storrow  was  still  deep  in  thought,  turning  the  van 
ished  Hardy's  advice  over  and  over  in  his  somewhat  be 
wildered  mind,  when  a  knock  sounded  on  his  door.  He 
answered  that  summons  abstractedly,  listlessly.  He  was 
still  disturbed  by  the  sudden  evaporation  of  some  earlier 
ardour,  still  depressed  by  the  consciousness,  always  heavy 
to  the  heart  of  youth,  that  his  calling  in  life  had  been 
tossed  on  the  balance  of  wisdom  and  found  wanting. 

"  Do  you  use  models  ?  "  demanded  a  demure  young 
voice  from  the  twilight  of  his  door-entry.  Storrow's 
searching  eyes  made  out  a  mouse-coloured  figure  in  a 
mouse-coloured  hat,  a  spare  and  sinewy  figure  with  inso 
lent  eyes  and  laughter  about  the  heavily  rouged  lips. 

"  Come  in,"  he  said.  But  as  she  rustled  past  him  into 
the  studio  with  her  high  heels  clicking  on  the  wooden 
floor,  his  courage  suddenly  failed  him.  "If  you  leave 
your  name  and  number,  I  can  'phone  you,  I  suppose?  " 

She  nodded,  with  her  audacious  young"  eyes  studying 
his  face.  He  reached  for  a  pencil  and  scratch-pad,  care 
lessly,  to  mask  his  embarrassment. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  83 

"  Pannie  Atwill,  at  The  Alwyn  Arms"  said  the  girl  in 
the  mouse-coloured  hat. 

He  looked  up  slowly.  The  name  came  back  to  him, 
sharp  as  a  pistol-shot.  The  smiling  rouged  lips  seemed  to 
be  enjoying  his  discomfiture. 

"  Where's  Torrie  ?  "  he  suddenly  asked,  in  a  constrained 
voice. 

''  Torrie  Throssel?  " 

Storrow  hesitated,  puzzled  as  to  the  source  of  her  quiet 
laughter.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  heard  the 
other  woman's  name.  It  struck  him  as  a  lyric  sort  of 
name.  That,  he  supposed,  was  why  it  brought  a  sudden 
sense  of  singing  in  his  veins. 

"  Yes,"  he  replied  at  a  venture,  seeing  himself  still 
studied  by  the  half -amused  eyes. 

"  Didn't  you  know  ?  "  demanded  the  mouse-coloured 
visitor. 

"Know  what?" 

"  That  she's  living  next  door  to  you  now  ?  " 

A  wave  of  apprehension  through  which  needled  way 
ward  currents  of  something  dangerously  close  to  rapture 
swept  over  him. 

"  But  that's  Alan  Vibbard's  studio,"  he  continued,  not 
altogether  conscious  of  what  he  was  saying. 

"  He  gave  her  the  use  of  it  until  he  gets  back  from 
Paris,"  Pannie  Atwill  announced,  with  a  shrug. 

"  How  long  has  she  been  there?  "  Storrow  demanded, 
with  his  pulses  pounding  in  spite  of  himself.  He  had 
remembered  the  door  under  the  imitation  Gobelin  and 
again  the  wave  of  mingled  triumph  and  apprehension  sub 
merged  him. 

"  For  two  days,"  he  was  told. 

"Then  she  doesn't  know  I'm  here?"  demanded  Stor 
row,  altogether  unconscious  of  the  egotism  in  that  ques 
tion. 

"  Search  me,"  parried  the  girl,  with  her  repeated  laugh 
of  cool  amusement  The  smile  went  out  of  her  face  as 


84  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

she  stood  studying  his  preoccupied  eyes.  She  sighed, 
without  quite  knowing  it.  Then  she  turned  towards  the 
still  open  door. 

"  Call  me  up  when  you  want  me,"  she  said  over  her 
shoulder.  And  she  closed  the  door  as  she  went  out,  leav 
ing  Storrow  standing  stock-still  in  the  centre  of  his  studio. 

All  day  long,  in  fact,  he  found  himself  stopping  in  his 
work  to  listen  for  sounds  from  the  neighbouring  room. 
He  found  it  impossible  to  accomplish  anything  in  that 
mood.  He  could  not  keep  his  thoughts  on  the  sketch  be 
fore  him,  for  five  minutes  at  a  time.  He  could  not  even 
remember  the  once  clearly  defined  end  he  was  trying  to 
reach.  And  it  began  to  impress  him  as  a  very  foolish 
business,  this  puddling  in  wet  mud  and  making  little 
animals  out  of  clay.  Hardy  had  been  right.  There  was 
a  limit  to  what  one  could  express  in  such  a  medium.  It 
was  too  confined,  too  cramping.  Then  Storrow  stopped 
short,  listening  intently,  wondering  at  the  faint  and 
mouse-like  movement  which  fell  on  his  ears  from  the 
studio  just  beyond  the  wall,  the  studio  which  in  some  in 
explicable  manner  had  added  depth  and  perspective  and 
mystery  to  what  had  once  seemed  nothing  but  a  blank 
plane  of  plaster  and  lath. 

His  heart  jumped  up  into  his  throat,  an  hour  later, 
when  he  heard  a  sudden  knock  on  his  door.  It  proved 
to  be  nothing  more  than  a  delivery-boy  with  a  supply  of 
groceries  for  his  depleted  kitchenette.  Once  he  was  alone 
again  he  fell  to  walking  his  floor,  thinly  troubled  in  spirit, 
listening  without  quite  knowing  it  for  every  sound  in  his 
immediate  neighbourhood.  He  heard  the  distant  growl 
of  thunder  in  the  south-east  and  realized  from  a  glance 
out  of  his  windows  that  a  storm  was  about  to  break  over 
the  city.  Those  repeated  challenging  ro!ls  of  thunder 
were  too  much  for  him.  He  had  the  love  of  the  hill-top 
wanderer  for  wind  and  rain.  So  he  unearthed  a  faded 
raincoat,  closed  his  windows  and  caught  up  his  hat.  Then 
he  made  for  the  street. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  85 

He  was  half-way  down  the  second  flight  of  stairs  be 
fore  he  remembered  his  open  skylight.  The  storm  had 
broken  by  this  time  and  he  could  hear  the  rattle  of  the 
heavy  drops  on  roof  and  window-glass.  'His  studio  was 
already  so  dark  that  he  was  forced  to  switch  on  his  lights 
before  he  could  manoeuvre  the  crank  and  ratchet  which 
lowered  the  hinged  sky-light  frame.  The  rain  was  beat 
ing  so  heavily  against  the  glass  by  this  time  that  he  stopped 
to  stare  at  it.  A  model-throne,  pushed  close  in  against 
one  of  the  windows,  made  his  thoughts  flash  back  to  Alan 
Vibbard's  canvas  in  the  faded  gold  frame,  to  the  white- 
fleshed  woman  staring  so  listlessly  out  at  just  such  another 
torrent  of  falling  rain.  It  brought  a  spear-head  of  an 
guish  through  his  breast;  he  scarcely  knew  why.  It 
prompted  him  to  swing  about  and  make  for  the  still  open 
door,  hungrier  than  ever  for  the  huge  sanities  of  wind 
and  air.  He  had  almost  reached  this  door  when  he  was 
arrested  by  a  low  and  liquid  bubbling  of  laughter. 

"Look  at  me!  "  cried  the  careless  and  contralto-noted 
voice  of  a  girl  from  the  gloomy  hallway. 

Storrow  looked.  He  saw  Torrie  Throssel  framed  by 
his  doorway,  almost  as  a  picture  is  framed,  holding  the 
folds  of  her  wet  skirt  wide  from  her  hips.  Water  dripped 
from  her  skirt-edge,  and  under  one  arm  of  her  thin  waist, 
now  translucent  with  rain,  she  held  what  was  clearly  a 
ruined  hat.  Her  hair,  beaten  flat  by  the  rain,  streaked 
across  the  milky  brow  now  puckered  with  its  half -inter 
rogative  laughter. 

"  You're  soaking!  "  said  Storrow,  staring  again  at  the 
translucent  wet  waist  where  the  texture,  flat  and  fine- 
wrinkled,  made  him  think  of  a  bas-relief  by  St.  Gaudens. 

"  I  did  it  on  purpose,"  acknowledged  Torrie,  almost 
joyfully.  "  I  love  it.  I  saw  it  coming  and  waited  for  it. 
Hear  my  shoes  squash! ''  she  cried  as  she  walked  across 
the  studio  floor  with  exaggerated  strides. 

He  was  conscious  of  the  ironic  commonplaceness  of 
their  speech.  He  was  equally  conscious  of  quickened 


86  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

pulses  and  an  indeterminate  dread  smothered  under  a 
wider  sweep  of  desire.  If  she  in  any  way  shared  in  his 
embarrassment  she  gave  no  sign  of  it.  There  was  some 
thing  stabilizing,  in  fact,  in  her  careless  lightheartedness. 
It  gave  Storrow  the  courage,  at  last,  to  face  the  predica 
ment  before  him. 

"  How  did  you  get  here?  "  he  almost  bluntly  demanded, 
nodding  without  knowing  it  toward  the  wall  with  the  com 
municating-door. 

Her  smile  vanished. 

"  I  followed  you,"  she  retorted,  quite  simply. 

"Followed  me?"  he  echoed,  with  his  eyes  on  hers. 
He  saw  the  reckless  light  on  her  face.  It  infected  him 
with  an  answering  recklessness  which  he  found  hard  to 
control.  But  there  should  be  no  more  surrenders,  he  ad 
monished  himself,  to  the  easy  tides  of  impulse. 

She  must  have  perceived  that  involuntary  hardening  of 
his  face,  for  she  came  closer  to  him,  slowly,  until  her 
groping  fingers,  as  she  studied  his  eyes,  were  able  to 
catch  at  the  edge  of  his  coat. 

"  You  didn't  think  you  could  do  what  you  did,  and 
then  drop  me  like  —  like  a  squeezed  orange,  did  you  ?  " 

"  I  wanted  to  do  what  was  right,"  he  said  with  unim 
aginative  honesty. 

"  But  was  it  right?  "  she  asked,  clinging  to  his  sleeve. 
That  mood  of  humility  was  something  quite  new  in  her. 
"  What  happened  up  there  in  The  Alwyn  Arms  had  never 
happened  to  me  before."  She  lowered  her  head,  so  he 
could  no  longer  see  her  face,  as  her  fingers  clung  child 
ishly  to  one  of  the  buttons  on  his  sleeve.  "  And  I  thought 
-  I  thought  you  would  come  back." 

He  could  smell  her  hair,  damp  and  heavy.  He  was 
impressed  by  the  discovery  that  she  must  be  without  per 
sonal  vanity,  standing  before  him  wet  and  bedraggled, 
beaten  down  like  a  pelted  flower-bed,  and  quite  uncon 
scious  of  her  appearance.  The  back-thrown  shoulders 
gave  a  sense  of  solidity  to  the  torso  which  the  wet  drapery 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  87 

accentuated  more  than  it  concealed.  There  was  appeal, 
too,  in  the  lines  of  passive  vigour  under  that  flattened  wet 
waist,  in  the  humid  eyes,  in  the  lips  slightly  heavy  with 
their  parted  indecision. 

But  Storrow  became  less  conscious  of  the  questioning 
red  lips  than  of  the  words  they  had  so  recently  uttered. 
A  dark  joy  had  surged  through  him,  the  joy  of  acquisi 
tion,  of  possession.  He  had  been  the  only  one.  He  had 
been  jealous  of  a  painted  figure  on  canvas,  conjecturing 
along  avenues  of  intimacy  which  never  existed.  He  had 
made  himself  miserable  for  nothing.  Then  the  joy  quite 
as  suddenly  surged  out  of  him  again,  leaving  in  its  wake  a 
darker  reaction  of  remorse.  He  had  been  the  only  one. 
And  that  meant  that  on  him  must  lie  all  the  weight  of 
their  wrong-doing.  On  him  wras  to  be  placed  all  the 
blame.  Without  quite  knowing  what  he  had  been  doing, 
he  had,  in  all  probability,  broken  her  life. 

He  looked  down  at  her,  conscious  still  again  of  her 
womanly  fragilities,  of  weaknesses  which  made  her  peril 
ous.  Passion,  he  remembered,  was  cruel.  It  could  be  as 
unconsidering  as  the  beak  of  an  eagle.  He  was  swept  by 
an  impression  of  having  been  hugely  unjust  to  her.  He 
could  not  fight  down  the  feeling  that  he  had  done  her  a 
great  wrong,  a  wrong  which  in  some  way  must  be  ex 
piated. 

She  misread  that  look  of  compassion  in  his  eyes. 

"You're  not  sorry,  are  you?"  she  asked.  She  re 
membered,  as  she  spoke,  that  the  studio  door  still  stood 
open.  Rather  than  cross  the  room  to  close  it,  she  fell 
back  several  steps,  drawing  Storrow  with  her,  until  she 
stood  beside  the  light-switch.  She  was  still  studying  the 
man's  face  as  she  lifted  up  a  finger  and  pressed  the  switch- 
button. 

"  Beloved,"  she  said  in  the  dusk,  breathing  heavily, 
"  you  wouldn't  leave  me,  would  you?  " 

Her  voice,  incredibly  timorous,  scarcely  rose  above  the 
rattle  of  the  rain  on  roof  and  skylight.  He  did  not 


88  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

answer  her.  She  stood  quiescent,  apparently  awaiting 
some  movement  from  him.  But  Storrow  found  some 
thing  deferring  that  movement,  strong  as  was  the  pro 
pulsion  to  make  it.  He  was  afraid  of  her,  and  doubly 
afraid  of  her  in  her  moments  of  meekness. 

"  Why  did  you  ever  come  here?  "  he  demanded  of  her, 
almost  harshly,  and  at  the  same  time  almost  hopelessly. 

She  remained  silent  a  moment  or  two. 

"  I  didn't  intend  you  to  know,  until  later,"  she  finally 
admitted.  She  reached  for  his  hand,  and  took  it  in  hers. 
That  hand  of  his,  she  found,  was  as  cold  as  ice.  Then 
she  sighed,  almost  contentedly,  as  though  there  was  some 
thing  reassuring  to  be  wrung  from  this  discovery. 
"  What  are  you  worrying  about  ?  "  she  demanded. 

"  About  you,"  he  said,  staring  down  at  her  in  the  un 
certain  light. 

She  looked  ruinous  in  her  wet  and  bedraggled  clothing. 
She  would  look  like  that,  perhaps,  in  years  to  come, 
broken  and  sodden  and  grown  unlovely  to  the  eye. 

His  involuntary  movement  of  withdrawal  did  not  alto 
gether  escape  her  notice. 

She  laughed  sharply,  almost  triumphantly.  She  slipped 
away  from  him,  feeling  along  the  wall  for  the  light-switch. 
Then  she  crossed  the  re-lighted  studio  to  the  door  and 
quietly  closed  it.  Having  done  that,  she  turned  and  stood 
regarding  him  with  studious  eyes. 

"  Listen  to  me,"  she  said  with  a  matter-of-factness 
which  surprised  him.  "  I  don't  want  you  ever  to  worry 
about  me.  If  there's  any  worrying  to  be  done,  I  can 
do  it.  But  there  isn't  any  need  for  it,  and  there  won't  be 
any  need  for  it." 

His  questioning  eyes  were  still  on  her  as  she  stepped 
back  to  his  side.  He  noticed  that  the  floor  was  pooled 
with  the  drip  of  water  where  she  had  been  standing.  He 
could  hear  the  monotonous  beat  of  rain  against  window- 
glass.  It  seemed  to  isolate  them,  to  leave  them  in  a 
world  by  themselves. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  89 

"  All  I  want  now  is  to  be  near  you,"  she  said. 

A  tremor  sped  through  him,  a  tremor  which  he  could 
not  control.  She  picked  up  her  wet  hat  and  turned  it 
meditatively  about  in  her  hand,  apparently  waiting  for 
him  to  speak.  But  he  neither  spoke  nor  moved. 

She  turned  slowly  away  from  him,  with  a  slight  frown 
of  disappointment  on  her  face.  Her  retreat,  trivial  as 
it  was,  filled  Storrow  with  a  sudden  sense  of  deprivation. 
He  was  prompted  to  follow  her,  to  accept  her  claim  that 
they  could  be  happy,  gloriously  happy,  if  they  only  chose 
to  be.  But  some  ghostly  hand  of  instinct  held  him  back. 

He  watched  her  as  she  came  to  a  stop  beside  the  win 
dow,  down  which  the  rain  was  beating  in  steady  runnels. 
He  saw  her  move  disconsolately  back  against  the  edge  of 
the  model-throne  and  settle  there,  like  a  wet  pigeon  on  a 
fountain-rim,  while  she  stared  wistfully  out  through  the 
rain-darkened  window. 

A  stab  of  pain  went  through  him  as  he  beheld  her  there, 
with  her  moist  skirt  flattened  against  the  line  of  the 
limbs.  Both  her  pose  and  her  expression  reminded  him 
too  sharply  of  the  Vibbard  picture.  It  sickened  and  an 
gered  him.  It  brought  to  a  head  a  dozen  unformulated 
suspicions. 

"  Why  are  you  in  that  man  Vibbard's  studio  ?  "  he 
found  himself  demanding. 

She  turned  her  head,  without  moving  her  body.  She 
was  much  cooler  about  it  than  he  had  expected. 

"  So  that's  what's  been  worrying  you !  "  she  said  with  a 
laugh.  It  struck  Storrow  as  being  almost  a  laugh  of 
relief.  There  was,  at  any  rate,  a  trace  of  scorn  in  it. 
She  turned  back,  and  fell  to  staring  out  the  window  once 
more.  "  We  are  being  childish,  after  all,"  she  finally 
said  with  a  sigh. 

"  It  doesn't  strike  me  as  altogether  childish/'  announced 
the  unhappy  young  man  confronting  her. 

She  turned  and  faced  him,  almost  forbearingly. 

"  I'm  in  Alan  Vibbard's  studio  because  he  told  me  last 


go  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

April  I  could  have  the  use  of  it  if  I  wanted  it.  He's 
somewhere  in  Europe  for  the  summer.  But  I  didn't  want 
it.  I  didn't  want  it,  at  least,  until  I  knew  you  were  here 
next  door  to  it.  So  you  are  really  the  reason  why  I'm  in 
that  studio,  if  you  insist  on  knowing!  " 

'  You  must  have  known  Vibbard  pretty  well,"  he  said 
with  his  apparently  heavy  intent  to  hurt  her. 

"  He  has  hundreds  of  friends  in  this  city,"  was  her 
careless-noted  retort. 

"  But  he  can't  lend  studios  to  all  of  them,"  was  Stor- 
row's  harsh  counter  retort. 

"He's  big-hearted.     And  also  big-minded!" 

"  I  suppose  that  implies  that  I'm  small?  "  demanded  the 
other,  out  of  his  misery. 

'  Your  insinuation  is.  But  I  knew  Alan  Vibbard  for 
three  years,  or  nearly  three  years,  and  in  all  that  time  he 
never  said  one  questionable  word  to  me.  And  I  hadn't 
known  you  three  hours  before  — 

"  I  thought  we  weren't  going  back  over  that,"  called 
out  the  stricken-eyed  Storrow. 

"  Then  why  do  you  say  things  that  make  me  go 
back  to  it?  "  she  countered.  As  he  moved  closer  to  the 
wall,  so  as  to  face  her,  the  similarity  of  her  posture  to  that 
of  the  figure  in  the  Vibbard  canvas  became  more  startling, 
more  disturbing.  He  felt  the  need  of  unburdening  his 
soul  of  its  entire  unsavoury  weight. 

"  Because  I  know  you  posed  for  Vibbard,"  he  told  her, 
with  a  tremor  in  his  voice. 

"  I  posed  for  Vibbard  ?  "  she  repeated,  turning  sharply 
about. 

"  Yes." 

"And  when  did  this  happen?"  she  demanded.  He 
rejoiced  inwardly  that  she  was  able  to  smile. 

"  I  don't  know." 
'  Then  how  did  it  happen  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  repeated. 

"  Then  why  do  you  say  such  absurd  things?  " 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  91 

"  Because  I  saw  the  painting,"  he  replied.  But  he 
spoke  with  less  assurance  now.  She  was  able  to  laugh 
outright  at  this. 

"  And  what  did  that  prove?  "  she  interrogated,  almost 
humorously. 

"  I  -- 1  thought  it  was  you,"  he  told  her. 

"  But  I'm  not  a  model,"  she  protested.  The  smile  went 
out  of  her  face.  "  What  was  that  picture?"  she  de 
manded. 

"  It  was  a  nude,"  he  compelled  himself  to  admit. 

"  And  you  thought  that  of  me?  "  she  challenged.  Her 
eyes,  darkened  with  anger,  were  full  on  his  face. 

"  I  didn't  want  to  believe  it,"  he  truthfully  enough 
acknowledged. 

"  But  why  should  you?  " 

He  intended  to  be,  he  wanted  to  be,  honest  with  her 
above  all  things. 

"  Because  the  figure  struck  me  as  being  amazingly  like 
yours,"  he  told  her,  doing  his  best  to  meet  the  scorn  in 
her  eyes.  She  was  able  to  laugh  again.  But  it  was  not 
a  happy  laugh. 

"  You  had  the  advantage,  of  course,  of  being  able  to 
compare  them,"  she  shot  out  at  him.  He  made  a  move 
ment  of  protest,  but  she  began  to  speak  again,  more  tem 
pestuously.  "  Even  if  you  had  that  advantage,  doesn't  it 
strike  you  as  being  rather  absurd,  pinning  an  artist's  paint 
ing  on  me?  It  wasn't  a  photograph.  And  they  don't 
paint  portraits  like  that,  as  far  as  I  know.  And  I  don't 
pose  for  artists,  whether  they're  my  friends  or  my  en 
emies.  And  if  I  did,  I'd  prefer  doing  it  in  clothes." 

"  That's  what  puzzled  me,"  protested  Storrow.  "  I 
felt  all  along  that — " 

She  stopped  him  with  a  gesture  that  was  almost  im 
perious. 

"Just  what  was  that  picture?"  she  demanded. 
"  What  was  it  like  ?  What  did  the  lady  happen  to  be  do 
ing  at  the  time  ?  " 


92  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  It's  not  easy  to  describe  a  picture  in  words,"  he  pro 
tested. 

"  Then  sketch  it  for  me,"  she  quietly  commanded. 

He  hesitated  for  a  moment,  swept  by  a  feeling  that  the 
subject  had  already  been  sufficiently  threshed  out.  Then 
a  craving  to  explore  deeper  into  that  murky  cave  prompted 
him  to  reach  for  his  sketching-block. 

"  Sit  back  where  you  were  before,"  he  told  her,  already 
in  his  isolating  upper  strata  of  the  creative  vision. 

She  returned  to  the  edge  of  the  model-throne.  There, 
without  question  or  protest,  she  sat  down,  facing  him. 

"  Don't  look  at  me  —  look  out  the  window,"  he  com 
manded.  She  made  a  moue  at  his  solemnity,  but  it  es 
caped  him,  for  he  was  already  at  work  with  his  flying  bit 
of  charcoal.  His  genius  for  line  was  quick  to  assert  it 
self.  He  caught  the  contours  which  the  flattened  wet 
clothing  only  partly  concealed.  With  his  quick  net-work 
of  running  strokes  he  re-enacted  the  ancient  miracle  of 
conjuring  form  out  of  flatness,  of  capturing  on  paper  an 
image  which  spelt  completeness  in  itself.  It  was  not  until 
he  had  finished  the  figure  and  stood  staring  impersonally 
at  the  half-shadowed  face  of  the  woman  herself  that  he 
became  thinly  conscious  of  her  sheer  beauty  of  throat  and 
neck  and  brow.  That  was  something  he  had  almost  for 
gotten  about.  But  the  face,  he  concluded,  was  not  im 
portant. 

"  Finished  yet?  "  asked  Torrie,  almost  impatiently. 

Instead  of  answering  her,  he  handed  over  the  sketch 
in  silence.  He  did  so  with  an  absurdly  exaggerated  idea 
of  the  latent  drama  in  the  situation,  as  though  vast  issues 
were  to  be  decided  in  one  way  or  the  other.  He  even  held 
his  breath  as  the  girl  took  the  drawing  in  her  hand,  the 
drawing,  which  after  some  mysterious  fashion,  was  to 
convict  her  of  guilt  or  of  innocence. 

His  searching  eyes,  however,  found  no  corresponding 
gravity  on  her  face.  She  merely  laughed  as  she  glanced 
down  at  the  sketch. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  93 

"  That's  clever,"  she  carelessly  acknowledged,  handing- 
it  back  to  him.  "  But  I  can't  see  that  it  means  anything." 

He  looked  down  at  the  drawing,  and  then,  with  a  shoul 
der-movement  of  impatience,  tossed  it  aside. 

"  You  foolish,  foolish  boy,"  said  Torrie's  voice,  quite 
close  to  him,  in  a  coo  as  quiet  as  a  ring-dove's.  The 
pendulum  of  his  emotion,  having  achieved  its  full  swing 
towards  misery,  was  already  moving  in  an  opposite  direc 
tion. 

"  Why  do  you  say  that?  "  he  asked,  conscious  of  what 
was  almost  condescension  in  her  smile. 

"  Because  I'm  glad  you  can  pay  me  the  compliment  of 
being  jealous  of  me,"  she  told  him.  "  And  since  you  care 
that  much,  you  can  kiss  me  if  you  want  to." 

She  stood  in  a  mock-submissive  attitude,  with  her  heels 
together  and  her  hands  behind  her  back.  He  noticed  the 
blue  shadows  about  the  half -lowered  lids  of  her  eyes  and 
certain  minute  spasmodic  movements  of  her  slightly  up 
raised  chin.  He  noticed,  too,  the  full  column  of  the  white 
throat,  the  characteristic  milky  whiteness  of  the  skin  where 
the  line  of  the  neck  flowed  into  the  plane  of  the  thick-set 
shoulder,  the  heavy  redness  of  the  slightly  parted  lips. 
It  agitated  him,  and  even  in  his  agitation  he  was  able 
to  resent  the  fact  that  she  had  in  some  way  obtained  con 
trol  of  his  pulse-beat.  Should  she  become  conscious  of 
that  fact,  he  forlornly  remembered,  he  would  be  helpless 
before  her. 

''  I  thought  that  was  over  with,"  he  weakly  contended. 

"  Chasta  Joseppha! "  she  whispered,  without  moving. 
The  allusion,  however,  was  lost  on  him.  She  still  stood 
with  her  face  upturned  and  her  hands  behind  her  back. 
But  slowly  the  relaxed  lines  about  the  half-smiling  lips 
settled  into  hardness.  The  eyes  shadowed  by  the  thick 
lashes  became  less  ruminative,  less  unfocussed,  with  an 
alert  and  narrowing  light  in  their  misty  hazel.  It  was 
not  until  she  had  taken  a  deep  breath,  and  as  slowly  ex 
pelled  it,  that  she  was  able  to  laugh  again. 


94  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

:<  You're  right,"  she  said  with  the  faintest  vibrata  of 
feeling  still  in  her  voice.  "  We'd  only  make  a  muddle 
of  things,  I  suppose,  and  there'll  soon  be  enough  to  worry 
about,  without  that !  " 

"  What  will  you  have  to  worry  about?  "  he  demanded, 
promptly  apprehensive. 

"  Work !  "  she  trilled  with  an  effort  at  gaiety. 

"What  work?"  he  asked. 

"  The  new  part  that  Krassler's  just  given  me.  Yes, 
Hermie's  eaten  crow  and  ladled  out  a  real  part  in  his 
Seventh  Wave.  It's  forty-eight  sides.  He  keeps  saying 
it's  the  chance  of  a  life-time.  But  I  get  chills  down  the 
spine  when  I  think  of  jumping  into  a  straight  part  like 
that  and  being  billed  next  to  a  woman  like  Catherine 
Klennert." 

Storrow,  whose  grasp  of  the  situation  was  not  a  com 
plete  one,  stood  watching  Torrie  as  for  the  second  time 
she  picked  up  her  sodden  hat. 

"  But  you're  not  going  to  let  anything  come  between 
you  and  your  chance,  are  you  ?  "  he  demanded,  breathing 
freer  in  this  less  intimate  atmosphere  of  action. 

ff  You're  the  only  thing  that  could  come  between  me  and 
that  chance,"  she  retorted  in  a  flash  of  candour. 

"  But  I  don't  intend  to,"  he  said  with  an  ardour  and 
promptness  which  in  no  way  added  to  her  happiness. 
Her  smile,  in  fact,  was  rather  a  wintry  one.  But  it  was  a 
smile. 

"  So  while  you're  working  away  on  your  side  of  this 
old  wall,"  she  told  him  as  she  stood  patting  the  faded 
paper,  "  I'll  be  studying  away  on  my  side  of  it.  And 
that  will  be  something,  after  all." 

He  made  an  effort  to  impress  on  her  that  it  would  be 
everything,  but  the  ruminative  hazel  eyes  were  listless  as 
she  listened  to  him.  She  apparently  failed  to  see,  as  he 
did,  something  brave  and  brilliant  in  their  projected  pro 
gram  of  resolute  defiance  to  impulse.  They  would  work 
side  by  side,  he  explained,  intent  on  their  own  ends,  and 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  95 

with  all  their  work  they  were  going  to  remain  the  best 
of  friends.  "Isn't  that  true?"  he  demanded. 

"  I  suppose  so,"  she  retorted. 

"  Then  shake  on  it,"  he  said. 

They  shook  hands,  solemnly.  She  sighed  for  the  sec 
ond  time  as  she  turned  towards  the  door. 

"  Now  I've  got  to  get  these  wet  duds  off,"  she  said  in 
a  tired  voice  as  she  stepped  out  across  the  threshold. 


CHAPTER   EIGHT 

STORROW,  during  the  preoccupied  days  that  fol 
lowed,  did  his  best  to  argue  himself  into  that  con 
tentment  of  mind  which  is  supposed  to  flower  out 
of  evil  overcome  and  temptation  defied.  But  he  was  con 
scious,  all  the  while,  of  a  vague  unrest,  of  a  sense  of  sus 
pended  action.  His  ear  was  repeatedly  assailed  by  the 
intimate  small  noises  of  Torrie  Throssel's  activities,  the 
snap  of  a  light-switch  on  their  common  wall,  the  tinkling 
of  a  telephone  call-bell,  even  the  partition-filtered  sounds 
of  her  splashing  body  in  its  bath.  He  had  heard  her 
preoccupied  whistling  of  a  current  song-hit,  in  no  way 
disturbed  by  the  flatness  of  the  notes.  Later  on,  he  caught 
the  sound  of  a  piano  being  opened  and  the  keys  being 
tested.  Then  she  had  played,  badly  but  noisily,  a  march- 
song  new  to  Broadway. 

He  became  aware,  the  next  day,  that  she  had  callers. 
He  never  failed  to  hear  the  thump  of  the  heavy  antique 
knocker  affixed  to  the  Vibbard  doors,  echoing  like  an  an 
vil-clang  along  the  dusty  hallway.  Some  of  these  visits 
were  contentious,  and  one  at  least  was  boisterous,  accom 
panied  by  fusillades  of  rag-time  from  the  piano.  Stor- 
row,  when  it  was  over,  thought  he  heard  Pannie  Atwill's 
voice  amid  those  of  a  departing  trio.  But  he  could  not  be 
sure  of  this,  and  he  compelled  himself  nevertheless  to  go 
on  with  his  modelling,  more  intent  than  ever  on  his  work. 
Yet  his  sense  of  deprivation  deepened  into  one  of  loneli 
ness.  Late  that  night  he  went  to  his  wide  back-window 
and  stared  out  at  the  golden  mist  that  hung  over  the  moon 
lit  city,  softening  even  the  barrier  of  brick  and  mortar 
ramparting  so  crazily  across  his  northern  sky-line. 

96 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  97 

"Hello,  honey!  "  softly  fluted  a  voice  not  more  than 
six  feet  away  from  him.  He  turned  and  saw  Torrie  in 
the  next  window,  with  the  faded  rose  kimono  thrown 
over  her  white  night-dress. 

"You're  not  in  bed  yet?"  he  called  back  in  a  half- 
whisper,  thrilling  in  spite  of  himself  as  he  saw  the  dark 
cloud  of  her  loosened  hair  falling  about  the  familiar  blur 
of  old  rose. 

"  No,  but  I'm  going  now,"  she  said  with  her  little  wood- 
pigeon  coo  of  laughter.  His  heart  sank.  As  he  leaned 
out  across  the  dusty  sill,  shot  through  with  a  still  keener 
sense  of  deprivation,  he  saw  her  slowly  lower  her  sash 
and  draw  back  into  the  unlighted  room.  He  sat  there 
for  a  long  time,  looking  out  at  the  city.  Then  he  went 
listlessly  to  bed. 

He  was  far  from  sorry,  the  next  morning,  to  find  Hardy 
invading  his  studio.  The  older  man  inspected  the  model 
ling  still  half -swathed  in  its  moistened  cheese-cloth,  shook 
his  head,  and  asked  when  Storrow  was  going  to  start  in 
at  real  work. 

"  Sooner  than  you  expect,"  Storrow  surprised  him  by 
asserting. 

"  Good !  "  announced  Hardy,  sitting  down  beside  the 
other's  littered  work-table.  He  absently  reached  out  and 
took  up  an  oblong  of  card-board  lying  there.  He  bent 
over  it  in  a  study  of  such  prolonged  silence  that  Storrow 
turned  and  stared  at  him. 

"  You  at  least  have  a  wonderful  memory,"  commented 
Hardy  as  he  put  down  the  sheet  again.  Storrow  could 
see  that  it  was  his  charcoal  drawing  of  Torrie  leaning 
against  the  model-throne. 

"  Yes,  that  thing  stuck  in  my  craw,"  explained  the 
younger  man  as  he  took  up  the  drawing.  He  tore  it 
slowly  to  pieces,  without  so  much  as  looking  at  it.  Then 
he  tossed  it  into  his  waste-paper  basket. 

"  And  so  you  took  that  way  of  working  it  out  of  your 


98  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

system  ?  "  demanded  the  other,  with  a  head-movement 
towards  the  basket. 

Storrow  nodded,  without  meeting  the  other  man's  gaze. 

"  There's  something  else  I  wish  you'd  work  out  of 
your  system  as  successfully  as  that,"  Hardy  remarked 
through  his  meditative  cigarette-smoke. 

"What?"  queried  Storrow,  making  ready  to  resent 
any  too  casual  intrusion  on  his  privacy  of  life. 

"  That  north  woods  story  of  yours,"  was  the  somewThat 
unexpected  reply.  Whereupon  the  younger  man,  vaguely 
relieved,  retorted  that  he  intended  to  give  up  puddling  for 
the  pen,  at  the  end  of  the  week. 

Hardy,  at  this  acidulated  yet  half-laughing  confession, 
acquired  an  unlooked-for  air  of  sobriety. 

"  I  suppose  it's  none  of  my  business,  in  a  way,"  he 
finally  ventured.  "  But  it  might  help  if  I  knew  just  how 
you  were  situated.  Do  you  have  to  live  on  what  your 
work  brings  in,  I  mean,  or  can  you  afford  to  be  inde 
pendent?  " 

"  I've  enough  to  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door,"  ex 
plained  Storrow  with  a  laugh,  "  but  not  enough  to  keep 
him  entirely  off  the  range." 

"  Well,  that's  more  important  than  you'll  ever  imagine," 
commented  the  other.  "  And  since  you're  going  to  settle 
down,  supposing  we  see  a  bit  of  this  city  before  the  work 
gets  its  grip  on  you."  He  mentioned  a  possible  luncheon 
at  the  Salmagundi  Club,  and  the  opening  smoker  of  the 
Kit-Kats,  a  glimpse  at  some  pictures  of  Hawthorne's,  and 
a  costume  ball  which  Brownie  Tell,  the  portrait-painter 
down  in  the  Square,  was  about  to  give.  "  It's  all  grist 
for  the  mill,"  he  explained.  And  Storrow,  seeing  in  this 
an  escape  from  his  mood  of  inertia,  was  glad  enough  to 
catch  at  the  chance  of  shaking  the  dust  off  his  soul. 
When  that  was  done  he  would  settle  down  to  work,  to 
work  that  would  mean  something. 

Hardy,  on  his  own  part,  was  conscious  of  no  sacrifice 
while  taking  in  tow  this  newcomer  to  his  city.  The  older 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  99 

man,  who  had  journeyed  full  swing  about  the  circle  of 
experience,  found  a  slightly  jaded  curiosity  revitalized  by 
the  other's  freshness  of  outlook.  He  even  found  Stor- 
row's  reactions  awakening  dormant  susceptibilities  in  his 
own  breast.  Yet  when  rehearsals  of  Hardy's  play  were 
resumed,  with  a  new  cast,  Storrow  seemed  more  inter 
ested  in  the  physical  aspects  of  the  excursion  than  in  the 
nature  of  the  drama  itself.  It  was  the  cavernous  and 
half-lit  stage,  the  empty  house,  the  self-hypnosis  of  actors 
intent  on  achieving  a  certain  end,  the  accidental  pictorial 
values  of  faces  seen  in  strong  side-lights,  which  proved 
the  more  appealing  to  the  young  sculptor.  But  this 
young  sculptor,  Hardy  soon  realized,  had  reserves  and 
reticences  which  it  would  be  necessary  to  respect.  He 
carried  himself  credibly  through  the  tea-hour  of  those 
sedater  homes  which  the  summer-end  found  already  open 
to  the  peripatetic  man  of  letters,  and  he  was  quietly  ap 
preciative  when  the  talk  went  back  to  the  older  man's  days 
in  Paris  and  Munich  and  Rome. 

It  was  a  pleasant  enough  task  for  Hardy,  this  appeas 
ing  of  a  leonine  young  appetite  with  the  rib-bones  of  his 
own  past.  It  was  not  long,  too,  before  his  attachment 
to  Storrow  became  a  less  impersonal  one.  Less  imper 
sonal,  also,  became  his  speculations  as  to  what  a  city  like 
New  York  would  do  to  the  Wild  Man  Of  The  Mountain, 
as  he  sometimes  half -humorously  called  Storrow.  He 
nursed  no  envy  for  the  younger  man  and  his  type.  They 
messed  things  up,  as  a  rule,  and  burned  themselves  out 
before  their  time.  It  was  the  colder  men,  the  harder  men, 
who  manoeuvred  life  into  success.  Yet  Storrow,  Hardy 
felt,  had  an  incongruous  streak  of  the  covenanter  in  his 
make-up.  That,  possibly,  would  serve  to  leave  him  more 
preyed  upon  than  preying.  But,  on  the  whole,  Hardy 
concluded,  he  was  a  man  it  would  be  profitable  to  watch, 
for  his  own  sake  as  well  as  the  other's. 

If  Storrow  was  in  any  way  conscious  of  this  double- 
edged  surveillance,  he  kept  his  secret  to  himself.  As  a 


ioo  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

sculptor,  he  felt,  he  was  already  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of 
Hardy.  He  had  no  intention  of  appearing  ridiculous  be 
fore  him  as  a  man.  No  word  of  Vibbard's  studio  or  its 
occupant  escaped  him,  much  as  his  thoughts  still  centred 
about  them.  But  a  day  or  two  later  these  same  thoughts 
wandered  more  than  ever  in  that  direction,  for  as  he 
stepped  into  his  room  at  the  end  of  the  afternoon,  Storrow 
heard  the  sound  of  a  piano  from  the  other  side  of  the 
wall.  He  knew,  after  listening  a  moment,  that  it  was 
somebody  playing  ""  Kennst  du  das  Land? ''  And  he  also 
knew  that  this  Mignon  song  had  been  a  favourite  of  his 
mother's,  and,  what  was  more,  was  being  played  by  a 
hand  much  too  masterly  to  belong  to  Torrie  Throssel. 
It  moved  him,  as  he  stood  there  intently  listening,  more 
than  he  had  imagined  any  music  could  do.  Then  came  a 
fragment  of  a  Chopin  nocturne,  played  aimlessly  and  be 
tween  broken  scraps  of  talk,  then  another  song,  familiar 
to  him  from  his  youth,  a  song  he  had  always  looked  upon 
as  one  of  the  loveliest  in  the  world. 

"  Plaisir  d'amour  ne  dure  qu'un  moment; 
Chagrin  d'amour  dour  toute  la  vie  "... 

In  strange  contrast  to  the  beauty  of  the  accompaniment 
he  heard  a  man's  voice,  broken,  quavering,  timberless, 
attempting  in  vain  to  follow  the  melting  chords  as  a  crip 
pled  beggar  might  hobble  after  a  gliding  bird.  It  im 
pressed  the  listener  as  being  the  voice  of  a  very  old  man. 
Yet  Storrow,  oddly  stirred,  crossed  to  his  window  and 
threw  it  open.  He  could  hear  the  wheezy  and  asthmatic 
voice  plainer  than  ever,  sustained  and  almost  redeemed 
by  the  pellucid  notes  of  the  piano. 

The  next  instant  there  was  a  sharp  knock  on  the  door. 
Storrow,  still  perplexed,  slowly  crossed  the  room. 

He  found  Torrie  there,  with  a  small  frown  of  anxiety 
wrinkling  her  forehead. 

"  Modrynski  's  here,"  she  said,  visibly  excited.     Stor- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  101 

row  did  not  respond  to  this  statement,  apparently,  as  she 
had  expected  him  to  do. 

"  He  could  help  you  tremendously,"  she  explained. 
"  We  knocked,  an  hour  ago,  but  you  weren't  in.  That's 
him  in  my  studio,  playing  Schubert." 

"  And  singing?  "  demanded  Storrow,  not  concealing  his 
scorn. 

The  girl  nodded.  "  It's  awful,  isn't  it?  The  poor  old 
fellow  has  softening  of  the  brain,  or  something  worse. 
At  least  they  say  so.  But  he  still  has  more  art  in  his 
little  finger  than  most  men  have  in  their  whole  head.  I'd 
like  him  to  see  what  you've  done." 

"  But  he  wouldn't  be  interested  in  animals,"  laughed 
Storrow,  to  whom  the  name  of  Modrynski  had  once 
spelled  magic. 

"  He's  one  of  the  three  greatest  sculptors  in  America," 
persisted  Torrie  with  studied  patience,  "  and  I  hate  to 
think  of  you  missing  the  chance  of  a  life-time." 

Storrow  could  not  altogether  disagree  with  her.  Yet 
he  stood  studying  her  face.  It  has  lost  its  passiveness  and 
seemed  narrower  and  more  alert  than  he  had  imagined 
it  to  be.  Excitement,  for  some  reason,  had  given  her  a 
splash  of  colour  on  either  cheek,  and  there  was  less  of  the 
rebel-look  in  the  habitually  meditative  eyes. 

"  Shall  I  go  in  with  you?  "  he  asked. 

"  No,  stay  here.  I'll  bring  Modrynski  in.  That'll 
make  it  easier  to  get  him  started  on  sculpture.  But  don't 
let  anything  he  says  offend  you.  He's  like  a  child,  re 
member." 

They  were  longer  in  getting  to  his  door  than  Storrow 
expected.  And  when  Torrie  appeared,  leading  Modryn 
ski  by  the  arm  through  the  uncertain  light  of  the  hall,  a 
faint  chill  fluttered  through  Storrow's  startled  body. 
That  serious-eyed  girl,  radiating  a  vitality  which  she 
found  hard  to  repress  to  the  laggard  movement  of  the 
man  beside  her,  made  Storrow's  mind  flash  back  to  an 
old  print  of  Antigone  leading  a  blinded  CEdipus.  For  he 


102  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

saw  a  fumbling  and  doddering  old  man  who  walked  with 
difficulty,  as  though  the  will  and  the  worn-out  body  were 
no  longer  in  co-ordination,  a  very  lean  and  tall  old  man 
with  a  narrow,  high  forehead  and  the  beak  of  an  eagle. 
A  sparse  nimbus  of  hair  failed  to  conceal  the  skull,  as 
shining  and  yellow  as  polished  ivory,  across  which  it  was 
so  laboriously  trained  in  thin  streaks  made  docile  by  oil. 
The  skin  of  the  face  itself  was  cheese-colour,  marked  with 
darker  patches  of  scurfy  brown,  and  everything  about 
that  face  seemed  pendulous,  from  the  nephritic  sacs  under 
the  eyes  to  the  drooping  cheek-flaps  and  the  saggy  dewlap 
under  the  slightly  tremulous  chin.  Yet  an  effort  had  been 
made  to  conceal  the  scrawny  throat  behind  a  foolishly 
high  and  imprisoning  starched  collar.  The  tall  and  de- 
crepid  body,  too,  was  arrayed  in  the  dandified  apparel  of 
an  earlier  mode,  a  tight-fitting  cutaway  coat  with  a  gar 
denia  in  the  button-hole,  pointed  shoes  with  pearl-coloured 
gaiters,  a  coloured  Parisian  waist-coat  across  which 
dangled  a  gold-rimmed  monocle  on  a  black  silk  ribbon. 

It  was  not  until  his  visitor  was  well  in  the  room  and 
Modrynski's  heavily-veined  and  slightly  tremulous  hand 
was  screwing  this  monocle  in  between  the  eagle  beak  and 
the  shaggy  brow  that  Storrow  noticed  the  old  artist's 
eyes.  There  and  there  alone  the  hand  of  Time  had  been 
stayed.  They  remained,  by  some  accident  of  organic 
repair,  the  eyes  of  youth.  From  behind  them  Intelligence 
looked  out,  as  from  a  ruined  tower.  They  seemed  to 
mock  the  senile  mask  of  the  body  through  which  they 
peered.  And  their  still  half-humorous  alertness,  their 
full-irised  ironic  power  of  penetration,  left  the  younger 
man  vaguely  but  unmistakably  apprehensive. 

"Ah,  this  is  the  boy  from  the  land  of  the  caribou!" 
cackled  the  broken  old  voice.  The  flaccid  lips,  slightly 
moist  at  one  corner  with  saliva,  were  pursed  up  critically 
as  the  bony  and  shaking  fingers  held  the  monocle  poised. 
Storrow,  at  the  moment,  was  forcing  himself  to  remember 
what  this  sodden  and  worn-out  hulk  of  a  man  had  ac- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  103 

complished  in  his  time,  what  dreams  he  had  sought  and 
found,  what  beauty  he  had  released  from  marble.  Torrie, 
making  no  effort  to  hide  her  laughter,  was  repeating  the 
younger  man's  name  to  the  older,  slowly  and  deliberately, 
as  though  she  were  talking  to  a  small  child. 

Modrynski  dropped  his  monocle.  Then  he  let  one 
tremulous  hand  rest  on  the  shoulder  of  the  girl  beside  him. 

"  And  apparently  much  more  appealing  to  the  eye,  my 
dear,  than  anything  he'll  ever  chisel  out  of  Tennessee  mar 
ble!  "  croaked  the  old  libertine. 

"  But  this  work  of  his  is  clever,"  argued  Torrie.  Mod 
rynski,  however,  was  not  to  be  diverted. 

"  You  young  fools,"  he  sighed,  as  he  sank  into  the  chair 
Storrow  placed  for  him,  "  you  never  know  what  youth 
is  worth  until  you  lose  it !  "  And  he  sat  there,  blinking 
like  a  captured  eagle,  mumbling  over  and  over :  "  Youth 
—  delicious  youth!  " 

And  since  Mahomet  refused  to  go  to  the  mountain 
Torrie  brought  the  mountain  to  Mahomet.  She  did  so 
by  resolutely  taking  up  Storrow's  models  and  placing  them 
directly  in  front  of  the  ruminating  old  sculptor.  He  sat 
confronting  them,  but  he  paid  no  attention  to  them. 
Storrow  even  smiled  as  Torrie  crowded  them  still  closer 
about  Modrynski's  knees,  as  one  captures  the  attention  of 
a  spoiled  child  with  toys.  But  Modrynski's  mind  was 
fixed  on  other  things. 

"  So  you're  the  young  barbarian  who  has  captured  this 
daughter  of  beauty,"  the  flaccid  lips  mumbled.  "  You 
and  your  silly,  big,  lumbering,  thick-muscled,  glorious, 
wild-animal  body!  And  I'll  be  damned  if  he  hasn't  got 
a  head  I'd  like  to  model,  now  I  come  to  think  of  it.  But 
what's  the  good?  And  he's  yours,  my  dear,  and  I  sup 
pose  you're  his.  That's  the  way  of  youth.  The  young 
must  walk  with  the  young.  Like  appeals  to  like.  Youth 
calls  to  youth.  And  you  put  a  wall  between  them,  but 
they  soon  have  a  hole  in  the  hedge,  as  my  French  friends 
phrase  it ! " 


104  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

Storrow  stared  pityingly  at  the  ruinous  fagade  behind 
which  lurked  so  much  lost  knowledge.  Then  he  no  longer 
pitied  the  aged  voluptuary  with  the  gardenia  and  the 
pomaded  nimbus,  for  Modrynski  had  suddenly  emerged 
into  a  consciousness  of  the  modellings  before  him.  He 
stiffened,  like  a  soldier  confronted  by  his  commanding- 
officer.  The  flaccid  lines  became  tense;  the  weak  mouth 
grew  authoritative.  And  as  the  aquiline  eye  made  its 
survey,  point  by  point  and  line  by  line,  Torrie  herself 
paled  a  little. 

"  Aren't  they  clever?  "  she  prompted. 

Modrynski  blinked  at  her.  Then  he  blinked  back  at 
the  models. 

"Clever?"  he  exploded,  "  Barye  without  brains  .  .  . 
sample  of  Siwash  realism  .  .  .  totem-pole  technique! 
No,"  he  mocked  in  a  falsetto  of  savagery,  "  this  might 
make  a  creditable  lamp-stand.  And  those  would  not  be 
unsuited  for  lawn  ornaments.  But  where's  the  beauty, 
woman,  where's  the  beauty  in  a  mud  vivarium?  What's 
it  fallen  to,  this  Art  we  followed  if  it  turns  away  from 
the  God-given  loveliness  of  man  and  woman  and  takes 
up  with  rodents  and  barnyards.  It  means  titmouses  for 
the  Metropolitan  and  the  ring-tailed  lemur  for  the  Louvre ! 
Clever?  Hah!  It  may  be  clever,  as  you  call  it,  but  get 
me  away  from  it  before  I  have  to  spray  myself  with  flea- 
powder!  Get  me  safe  in  my  taxi  before  this  mud  Zoo 
springs  at  my  throat  and  gives  me  rabies !  " 

He  rose  to  his  feet  with  an  effort,  snapping  out  phrases 
-"  Half-baked  little  Landseers!  "  — "  going  to  epicize  the 
jungle  "-— •"  put  tubes  in  their  mouths  and  turn  'em  into 
fountains !  " 

"  Modrynski !  "  cried  the  girl,  with  blazing  eyes,  over 
whelmed  by  the  injustice  of  his  outburst.  But  Modrynski 
was  already  headed  for  the  door,  with  Torrie  fruitlessly 
trying  to  intercept  him.  He  waved  her  aside  and  van 
ished  down  the  half-lighted  hallway,  rumbling  and  cough 
ing  and  groping  his  way  to  the  stairs. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  105 

Torrie  stood  motionless,  with  one  hand  against  her  thin 
shirtwaist.  Then  she  turned  and  advanced  slowly  to 
wards  Storrow.  So  tragic  was  the  light  in  her  eyes  that 
Storrow  laughed,  not  altogether  happily,  but  easily  and 
impersonally.  The  situation,  after  all,  had  clarified,  clar 
ified  at  a  stroke.  Hardy  had  been  right.  A  master  had 
confirmed  his  hint.  The  era  of  the  mud  Zoo  was  over 
for  all  time. 

"  And  I  thought  he'd  help  you,"  Torrie  mourned,  still 
stunned  by  the  force  of  that  outbreak. 

"  He  has"  asserted  Storrow,  not  without  a  touch  of 
bitterness. 

There  was  still  pity  in  the  girl's  eyes.  "  How  could 
he  ? ' '  she  demanded. 

"  By  persuading  me  I'm  about  finished  with  this  stuff," 
was  the  answer.  There  was  a  quaver  in  his  voice  as  he 
spoke,  for  no  man  can  contemplate  the  abandonment  of 
what  has  been  his  life-work  without  a  pang  of  regret. 
Nor  could  he,  immured  in  his  own  emotions  as  he  was, 
see  his  way  to  resent  the  other's  instinctive  movement  of 
sympathy  as  she  placed  her  two  hands  on  his  shoulders  and 
turned  his  face  towards  the  light.  In  that  movement  he 
perceived  no  hint  of  appropriation.  But  before  he  be 
came  aware  of  it  he  stood  within  the  aura  of  her  influence, 
and  as  she  leaned  closer  with  her  fingers  linked  behind  his 
neck  and  her  lips  murmuring  "  I'm  sorry  —  so  sorry!  " 
he  found,  as  other  men  before  him  have  done,  that  there 
was  anodyne  in  a  woman's  touch.  He  enclosed  that  lean 
ing  figure  in  the  sustaining  clasp  of  his  own  arms  and 
his  face  bent  closer  to  the  face  that  was  lifted  close  to 
his  own. 

They  were  startled  by  a  knock  on  the  door.  The  two 
relaxed  bodies  did  not  shift  from  where  they  stood,  but 
a  rigidity  came  into  their  limbs  and  the  two  heads  raised 
and  turned,  strangely  like  wild  animals  that  have  sniffed 
danger  up-wind.  They  did  not  speak,  as  the  knock  was 


106  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

repeated,  but  Storrow  accepted  the  pressure  of  the  girl's 
hand  on  his  arm  as  a  command  to  remain  silent. 

They  were  still  standing  there,  with  that  summons  un 
answered,  when  the  door  was  unexpectedly  opened. 
Storrow,  at  the  moment  that  he  backed  away,  saw  a  gloved 
and  veiled  figure  with  a  wicker  hamper  suspended  from 
one  slender  arm.  There  was  a  moment  of  unbroken  si 
lence.  The  air  became  electric  with  motion  suspended. 

"  Forgive  me  for  house-breaking,"  cried  the  beguiling 
light  voice  of  Charlotte  Kirkner.  "  But  I  wanted  to  sur 
prise  you,  Owen,  with  a  basket  of  fruit." 

Storrow,  flushing  to  the  eyes,  advanced  slowly  and  took 
the  wicker  hamper  from  her  hand.  He  saw  the  quick 
glance  that  passed  from  one  woman  to  the  other,  the  inter 
play  of  cold  appraisal,  the  alert  hostility  behind  the  screen 
ing  bocage  of  indifferency.  Charlotte  Kirkner,  he  no 
ticed,  did  not  advance  into  the  room.  He  was  wondering, 
abashed  by  the  light  in  her  barricaded  eyes,  just  what 
to  say,  just  how  to  phrase  his  speech  of  introduction. 
But  before  he  arrived  at  that  end  his  doorway  was  dark 
ened  by  still  another  figure. 

It  was  Chester  Hardy. 

"  Hello,  Storrow,"  he  said  as  he  sauntered  in.  Then 
to  the  former's  surprise  he  just  as  unceremoniously  said 
"  Hello,  Torrie,"  and  came  to  a  stop,  slightly  bewildered 
by  the  sustained  silence  of  the  circle  he  had  invaded.  It 
was  not  until  he  turned  about  that  he  saw  the  face  of 
the  girl  nearer  the  door. 

"  It's  Miss  Kirkner,  of  course,"  he  said  with  his  quiet 
and  easy  smile.  And  the  next  moment  they  were  shak 
ing  hands.  "  You  remember  how  badly  I  skated  last 
winter  at  Tuxedo." 

"  It  is  nice  to  see  you  again,"  acknowledged  the  girl, 
her  colour  slowly  mounting  as  she  moved  ever  so  slightly 
towards  the  still  open  door.  "  But  Owen's  busy  and  I 
must  be  off." 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  107 

Hardy  re-inspected  the  trio,  vainly  waiting  for  some 
word  to  resolve  the  situation  into  translucence. 

"  In  that  case  we'd  better  all  be  off,"  he  announced. 
"  So  I'll  take  you  down  to  that  opulent  sedan  of  yours 
on  my  way." 

He  was  able  to  wave  his  cane  lightheartedly  as  he  went. 
Their  voices,  high  with  a  coerced  hilarity  as  they  de 
scended  the  stairs,  floated  brokenly  back  through  the  dusty 
hallway.  Storrow  crossed  the  room  and  closed  the  door. 

"  Who  is  that  woman?  "  demanded  Torrie  Throssel  as 
Storrow  stood  with  his  back  to  the  closed  door,  staring 
at  her. 

"  What  difference  does  it  make?  "  he  said  with  rather 
a  reckless  laugh. 


CHAPTER   NINE 

OWEN  STORROW'S  early  training  had  been 
the  direct  antithesis  of  that  bohemianism  which 
clings  about  the  skirts  of  the  metropolitan  art- 
colony.  He  found  it  more  and  more  expedient,  accord 
ingly,  to  keep  reminding  himself  that  New  York  was  not 
like  the  rest  of  the  world  as  he  had  known  it.  It  was  a 
riddle  which  only  time  and  study  could  decipher. 
Tangled  up  with  its  moments  of  exaltation  were  unex 
pected  aspects  of  degradation,  just  as  anachronistic  ugli 
nesses  still  cropped  up  in  the  midst  of  its  material  beau 
ties.  It  was  a  world  by  itself,  apparently,  disorderly, 
kaleidoscopic,  contradictory.  But  behind  its  muddle  of 
broken  hues  and  its  fortuity  of  frontal  design,  Storrow 
contended,  it  necessarily  harboured  some  deep-hidden 
dignity  of  purpose,  some  unifying  spirit  of  aspiration. 
It  was  the  duty  of  the  newcomer,  therefore,  to  stand 
silent,  to  suspend  judgment,  to  look  deeper  and  await  the 
final  gift  of  understanding. 

Yet  the  matter  of  Browning  Tell  and  his  costume-ball 
proved  a  good  deal  of  a  perplexity  to  the  newcomer  in 
question.  Storrow  had  been  told  that  it  would  be  one  of 
the  best  things  of  the  year,  equal  to  anything  he  would 
get  in  Paris,  as  good  as  the  Quart'  Arts  Ball  of  Ninety- 
Two,  about  which  the  older  men  still  spoke  with  wistful 
wags  of  the  head.  There  would  be  famous  people  there, 
famous  artists,  famous  beauties,  authors,  actresses, 
models,  musicians,  society  idlers,  and,  in  all  probability, 
some  fancy-dress  apparel  that  would  be  frankly  shocking. 
Torrie  Throssel,  he  found,  had  been  at  such  things,  and 
had  no  intention  of  going  to  this  one.  From  the  first, 

108 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  109 

in  fact,  she  spoke  contemptuously  of  Tell  and  his 
"  stunts,"  as  she  called  them.  He  was  an  impostor  and 
a  climber,  she  claimed,  one  of  the  dance-mad  Pans  of 
those  pre-bellum  dance-mad  days  who  depended  more  on 
his  feet  than  his  hands  in  the  matter  of  capturing  fash 
ionable  sitters.  And  he  was  a  trickster  even  in  his  work, 
claimed  his  detractor,  since  he  had  the  habit  of  placing 
these  sitters  behind  a  framed  network  of  interwoven  pic 
ture-cord  squares  and  drawing  in  their  figures  on  can 
vases  carefully  blocked  out  with  the  same  number  of 
squares,  which  is  one  way  of  beating  the  pantograph,  she 
protested,  when  you  happen  to  be  overbusy  taking  money 
away  from  foolish  millionaries. 

Chester  Hardy,  on  the  other  hand,  added  to  Storrow's 
perplexity  by  taking  a  view  directly  opposite  to  Torrie's. 
He  insisted  that  the  younger  man  should  be  a  spectator 
of  that  bal  costume.  And  if  reason  more  substantial 
than  the  mere  quest  of  amusement  induced  Hardy  to  take 
this  stand  he  at  least  kept  them  to  himself.  He  even 
refused  to  accept  Storrow's  revived  excuses  about  being 
hard  at  work  laying  out  his  North  Woods  novel.  Nor 
did  the  claim  that  it  was  already  too  late  to  have  a  costume 
made  prove  as  serviceable  as  it  was  intended.  Hardy,  in 
fact,  gave  the  Canadian  a  card  to  the  wife  of  a  tubercular 
artist  who,  in  that  heyday  of  the  dancing  mania,  con 
siderably  augmented  the  family  income  by  maintaining 
and  renting  out  a  fantastic  wardrobe  of  apparel  fashioned 
for  just  such  ends.  So  Storrow  finally  selected  a  Cap 
tain  Kidd  costume,  not  because  the  sash  and  wig  and 
loose-topped  Wellington  boots  appealed  to  him,  but  be 
cause  the  clothing  in  question  happened  to  fit  his  some 
what  brawny  frame. 

It  was  almost  midnight  when  Hardy  and  his  companion 
made  their  way  to  Washington  Square  in  a  taxicab. 
Along  the  shabbiest  side  of  that  Square  Storrow  beheld  a 
line  of  landaulets  and  sedans  and  limousines  which  im 
pressed  him  even  more  than  a  heterogeneous  and  singing 


no  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

band  which  was  arriving  on  foot  from  Greenwich  Vil 
lage.  Storrow  lost  Hardy  in  the  crowd  on  the  narrow 
stairway  strung  with  Chinese  lanterns,  which  smelt  of 
fur  and  scented  talcum  and  perspiration.  Already,  over 
the  crowding  heads  of  Columbines  and  Mandarins  and 
Marie  Antoinettes  and  Indian  Chiefs  and  Geisha  Girls 
and  Jack  Tars  and  Arabs  in  flowing  burnouses,  sounded 
the  strains  of  an  orchestra  pounding  out  "  rag-time  " 
music. 

"Pipe  the  Howard  Pyle  poster!"  cried  an  artist-girl 
in  velveteens  to  her  Cave-Man  companion  with  a  leopard- 
skin  draped  over  his  shoulder,  as  she  laughed  openly  into 
Storrow's  slightly  abashed  eyes. 

"Get  on  to  the  Otto  Cushing  guy!"  proclaimed  still 
another  girl  as  she  laughed  back  at  Storrow  from  the 
upper  stairway.  And  Storrow  began  to  feel  that  his 
costume  was  a  foolish  one. 

At  the  stair-head  he  found  a  short  and  somewhat 
rotund  man  in  pink  "  fleshings  "  and  a  pale  blonde  wig, 
with  a  gilded  Cupid's  bow  on  his  arm,  riotously  receiv 
ing  his  equally  riotous  guests,  most  of  whom  accosted 
him  as  "  Brownie."  And  the  still  solemn-eyed  Canadian 
found  it  hard  to  believe  that  this  undignified  figure  was 
the  Browning  Tell  who  could  claim  at  least  three  can 
vases  in  the  Metropolitan  and  could  behold  his  name  week 
by  week  on  the  art-pages  of  the  Sunday  papers.  But 
Storrow  found  himself  elbowed  and  shouldered  on  into 
a  jungle  of  palm  and  evergreen  and  more  Chinese  lan 
terns,  where  on  a  large  but  crowded  floor  the  dancing  was 
already  taking  place.  Beyond  this  again  was  another 
room  duly  labelled  the  "  Grabeteria,"  where  ices  were 
served  by  three  somewhat  startling  young  dccolletcs, 
and  sandwiches  and  bouillon  jelly  were  laid  out  on  an  im 
provised  buffet  beside  three  huge  barrels  of  beer  mounted 
on  wooden  horses.  In  the  centre  of  the  room  was  a 
punch-bowl  as  big  as  a  wash-tub,  about  which  the  thirsty 
dancers  were  already  crowding  in  noisy  and  ever-shifting 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  ill 

rows  as  high-coloured  as  the  rings  of  Saturn.  Already, 
too,  the  air  was  blue  with  cigarette-smoke,  and  heavy 
with  the  odour  of  the  liquid  from  the  dripping  barrel- 
spigots,  of  the  spilled  punch,  of  floor-dust  mingling  with 
axillary  exhalations.  But  never  for  a  moment  did  the 
din  and  music  stop. 

On  the  floor  above,  where  a  hurdy-gurdy  had  been 
hoisted  through  a  front  window,  Storrow  found  the 
dancing  to  be  even  more  energetic  and  the  spirit  of  good- 
fellowship  even  more  elastic.  In  little  man-made  bowers 
along  one  wall  were  murmuring  couples,  unashamed  of 
both  their  silences  and  their  caresses.  On  an  open  cor 
ner  of  the  floor  a  padded  policeman  was  giving  an  ex 
hibition  of  the  Matiche  with  a  dimpled  little  convict  in 
stripes  who  held  a  papier-mache  ball-and-chain  in  her 
hand  as  she  danced.  When  the  music  stopped  there  was 
a  tidal  wave  towards  the  beer  and  the  punch-bowl,  a 
stream  of  colour  and  movement,  of  tinsel  and  metal  and 
feather  and  rice-powdered  flesh  so  vari-coloured  that  it 
tended  to  make  the  eyes  ache.  Then  the  hurdy-gurdy 
struck  up  above  the  orchestra  on  the  floor  below,  the  ebb 
tide  became  a  flood-tide,  and  this  time  the  interpolated 
attraction  was  a  Palette  Dance  given  by  two  lean  and 
swarthy  models  from  "  The  Village."  These  acrobatic 
and  lightly-garbed  ladies  were  attended  by  two  naked 
negro-boys  with  clout-cloths  about  their  loins  and  In 
dian  war-bonnets  on  their  heads,  each  carrying  a  spear 
improvised  from  a  curtain-pole.  The  Palette  Dance  was 
followed  by  a  Dance  of  the  Seven  Pails,  which  proved 
even  more  popular  than  its  predecessor  but  impressed 
Storrow  as  being  over-lewd  in  its  grotesqueries,  prompt 
ing  him  to  drift  on  to  other  fields.  As  he  moved  away 
a  satin  slipper,  apparently  tossed  through  the  air  from 
nowhere,  struck  the  abashed  young  Captain  Kidd  on  the 
shoulder.  He  heard  muffled  laughter  from  a  darkened 
arbour  and  a  white  hand  was  thrust  through  the  screen 
ing  leafage  to  take  possession  of  his  cape.  But  he  eluded 


112  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

those  appropriating  fingers  and  drifted  down-stairs  again, 
where  he  found  himself  more  ill-at-ease  than  ever. 

"Hello,  Apollo,  why  aren't  you  dancing?"  demanded 
a  half-clad  nymph  in  a  cheese-cloth  tunic  spangled  with 
silver,  interrupting  Storrow  in  the  midst  of  his  morose 
wandering  about. 

"  I  don't  know  how,"  acknowledged  Storrow,  arrested 
by  the  high  and  silvery-sweet  tones  of  her  excited  young 
voice. 

"  But  there's  no  reason  you  can't  learn,"  declared  the 
girl,  capturing  him  by  the  edge  of  his  costume.  He  con 
cluded  from  that  airy  and  almost  sexless  immediacy  of 
address,  that  she  was  an  artist's  model. 

"  In  one  night?  "  he  asked. 

"  In  ten  minutes,"  retorted  the  girl,  drawing  him 
closer.  "  Look  —  let  me  show  you." 

It  was  a  time  when  syncopated  music  and  dance-move 
ments  of  African  origin  were  at  the  height  of  popular 
favour.  There  was  little  that  was  complex  in  either  the 
movements  or  the  music,  and  Storrow  surrendered  easily 
enough  to  that  twin  appeal  of  rhythm  and  sound. 

"  Try  that  again,"  commanded  the  wisp  of  a  girl  so 
adroitly  manoeuvring  him  about  the  floor.  "  And  hold 
me  closer,  kid!  I'm  not  gun-cotton,  you  know.  That's 
better.  Now  put  some  pep  into  it !  " 

It  was  not  easy,  at  first.  But  the  crowding  bodies 
about  him  masked  his  mistakes  and  he  was  able  to  master 
a  number  of  the  steps.  It  surprised  him,  as  he  became 
more  expert,  to  find  his  earlier  repugnance  at  the  spectacle 
passing  away,  just  as  his  earlier  repugnance  for  the  half- 
draped  girl  herself  had  disappeared.  He  liked  the  con 
tact  of  that  firm  young  body  against  his.  He  liked  the 
harmony  of  movement  in  their  limbs,  the  pulse  of  the 
music,  the  utter  abandonment  to  motion  constituting  an 
end  in  itself.  Hardy  hadn't  been  so  far  wrong.  Danc 
ing,  after  all,  was  what  kept  the  world  young.  Children 
danced,  waves  danced,  even  the  leaves  of  the  trees  danced. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  113 

So  why  shouldn't  men  and  women?  And  Storrow,  be 
coming  more  adept  in  those  rudimentary  movements,  no 
longer  allowed  his  partner  to  guide  him,  but  putting  out 
a  strength  which  easily  over-matched  hers,  fell  to  pilot 
ing  the  girl  in  the  silver  tunic  as  he  felt  she  ought  to  be 
piloted. 

"  Gee,  that's  great!  "  she  murmured,  surrendering  con 
tentedly  to  his  mastery.  She  relaxed  in  his  clasp,  becom 
ing  almost  passive,  permitting  him  to  lift  her  clear  of 
the  floor  in  certain  of  their  more  ecstatic  whirlings. 

"  You'll  make  some  little  dancer,  kid,  after  a  night  or 
two  of  this,"  panted  his  partner,  with  a  little  squeeze  of 
appreciation  as  they  came  to  a  stop  when  the  music  ceased. 
They  were  both  thirsty,  so  they  made  their  way  arm  in 
arm  to  the  punch-bowl,  into  which  their  host  was  putting 
fresh  strawberries  and  another  bottle  of  cognac. 

"  Give  it  a  kick,  Brownie,"  cried  the  girl  on  Storrow's 
arm  as  she  watched  the  last  of  the  brandy  flow  out  of  the 
bottle.  And  the  kick  was  there,  Storrow  felt,  as  he  drank 
his  second  glass  of  that  beguiling  concoction,  so  deceiv 
ingly  chilled  and  sweetened.  The  music  started  up  again, 
provocative,  challenging,  almost  mystic  in  its  aboriginal 
monotony  of  beat.  He  had  been  living  too  long,  he  felt, 
on  the  north  side  of  life. 

"  I'm  next  here,"  announced  a  fuller-toned  voice,  and 
a  girl  with  laughing  eyes  caught  Storrow  by  the  arm. 

It  was  Pannie  Atwill.  She  had  been  a  trained  stage 
dancer  and  she  moved  with  a  quiet  and  moderated  grace 
which  Storrow  found  easy  to  follow.  The  opposition  of 
limbs  to  limbs,  in  her  case,  was  more  impersonal.  Her 
mind  seemed  intent  on  movement  alone.  Storrow  was 
even  conscious  of  the  fact  that  at  the  moment  he  meant 
nothing  to  her,  beyond  being  the  instrument  through 
which  she  achieved  her  deliberated  end.  It  was  plain 
that  she  preferred  dancing,  and  dancing  well,  to  being 
mauled.  And  it  began  to  dawn  on  Storrow  that  there 
was  a  delight  above  the  carnal  delight  of  physical  contact 


n4  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

in  such  things,  that  there  was  the  aesthetic  pleasure  of 
harmonious  sound  and  step  in  these  preordained  move 
ments  about  a  polished  floor. 

"  There's  that  souse  Donnie  Eastman,"  the  dancing 
girl  said  without  a  break  in  her  steps.  "  Don't  let  him 
get  near  me.  .  .  .  You're  not  so  rotten  as  I  thought  you'd 
be.  ...  But  don't  walk  on  the  dame,  please,  just  because 
she's  so  pie-eyed  she  has  to  go  down.  .  .  .  Now  bunt 
through  and  get  away  from  the  Eastman  gink  until  the 
music  starts  again.  .  .  .  And  go  light  on  that  punch  or 
believe  me,  you'll  have  a  head  like  a  Zep  before  morn 
ing!" 

Towards  the  end  of  their  second  dance  together  Pan- 
nie  Atwill  had  become  both  more  silent  and  more  serious 
of  mien. 

"  Let's  beat  it  up  to  the  roof,"  she  suggested,  starting 
for  the  open  without  even  waiting  for  his  answer. 
There,  in  the  darkness,  they  stumbled  upon  an  occasional 
couple  huddled  together.  From  deeper  shadows  glowed 
the  tips  of  lighted  cigarettes,  and  now  and  then  a  laughing 
gasp,  or  a  muffled  scream  of  protest,  rose  through  the 
gloom.  Why  it  impressed  Storrow  as  being  slightly 
Babylonian  he  did  not  stop  to  question.  But  he  was 
grateful  for  the  fresh  air  and  the  star-strewn  spaces 
above  him. 

"  I  want  to  talk  to  you,"  announced  the  girl  as  she  made 
room  for  Storrow  on  a  coping-tile.  That,  apparently, 
was  the  closest  they  could  get  to  seclusion. 

"About  what?"  asked  the  other,  wondering  why  the 
quietness  about  him  should  become  so  suddenly  oppres 
sive. 

"  About  Torrie,"  was  Fannie  Atwill's  altogether  un 
expected  answer,  as  she  fumbled  about  her  stocking-top 
for  what  proved  to  be  a  small  silver  box.  "  She's  a 
good  friend  of  mine,  that  girl,  and  I  don't  want  to  see 
her  foot  slip  when  she's  got  the  chance  of  a  life-time 
waiting  for  her." 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  115 

"What  do  you  mean  by  her  foot  slip?"  demanded 
Storrow,  warm  and  cold  at  one  and  the  same  time. 

Pannie  did  not  explain  that  phrase.  Instead,  she  deftly 
struck  a  match  on  her  slipper-heel  and  lighted  a  ciga 
rette. 

"  Torrie's  not  like  my  bunch,"  she  continued  after 
slowly  exhaling  this  smoke.  "  She  takes  things  too 
serious.  She's  got  a  heart  as  big  as  a  moving-van,  and 
unless  it's  handled  right  it's  going  to  get  hurt.  Just  now 
she's  got  the  chance  of  a  lifetime  to  make  a  hit  with 
Krassler.'' 

"With  Krassler?"  echoed  Storrow. 

"  Yes,  if  she'll  only  stick  her  head  in  the  yoke  and  let 
that  kike  drive  her  the  way  she  otta  be  driven,  he'll  make 
her  into  an  actress  and  have  her  name  in  electrics  inside 
of  a  second  season.  He's  pawing  the  stall-planks  to  do 
it.  And  he  can  do  it.  But  there's  just  one  thing  stand 
ing  between  Torrie  and  her  chance." 

"What's  that?"  asked  the  man  in  the  Captain  Kidd 
make-up. 

"  It's  you,"  retorted  the  other,  and  before  he  could 
break  in  with  the  protest  his  lips  were  framing  she  swept 
on.  "  You  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  Torrie's  foolish 
about  you.  And  I  know  her  better  than  I  do  you,  and  I 
know  she's  too  big  to  be  broken  up  for  nothing." 

"  Perhaps,"  Storrow  said  with  a  not  altogether  suc 
cessful  attempt  at  dignity,  "  if  you  knew  me  better  you'd 
not  foresee  that  catastrophe  quite  so  imminent !  " 

"  That's  what  I  want  to  get  at,"  explained  the  girl, 
involved  in  perplexities  which  were  apparently  new  to 
her.  "  A  woman  as  lovely  as  Torrie  Throssel  can't  go 
around  loose  in  a  rabbit-run  like  New  York  without  hav 
ing  enough  pop-eyed  chasers  at  her  heels  to  turn  her 
head,  if  she  wanted  it  turned.  But  Torrie  isn't  built  that 
way.  She's  always  preferred  travelling  light  and  travel 
ling  alone.  She's  never  looked  twice  at  a  man,  as  long 
as  I've  known  her  —  at  least  not  until  she  bumped  into 


ii6  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

you  and  lost  her  bearings.  Oh,  there's  no  use  humping 
and  edging  away  and  getting  up-stage  over  what  I'm 
saying  to  you.  I  know  what  I  know.  And  it's  consider 
able.  But  the  real  thing  I  want  to  know  is,  what're 
you  going  to  do  about  it?" 

The  effrontery  of  that  demand  rather  took  Storrow's 
breath  away. 

"  Isn't  that  something  entirely  between  Torrie  and 
me?  "  he  asked  much  more  calmly  than  he  had  expected. 

The  girl  beside  him  took  another  deep  inhalation  of 
cigarette-smoke.  Then  she  laughed  a  little. 

"  If  I  thought  you  were  good  enough  for  Torrie,  or 
if  she  was  a  girl  who  could  take  her  own  part  in  a  thing 
like  this,  I'd  most  certainly  say  yes.  But  you've  got  to 
show  me!  " 

It  was  Storrow's  turn  to  laugh,  a  barricading  but  by 
no  means  happy  laugh. 

"  What  particular  form  must  that  demonstration 
take?"  he  demanded. 

He  was  conscious  of  the  girl's  face  being  turned  closer 
to  his  in  the  darkness. 

"  It  ought  to  look  like  what  any  white  man  would  do 
under  the  circumstances,"  she  coolly  and  quietly  averred. 
She  stopped  him,  the  next  moment,  as  he  was  about  to 
speak.  "  Man  to  man,"  she  said,  with  her  hand  on  his 
arm,  "  and  straight  out,  do  you  honestly  care  for  that 
girl?" 

"And  if  I  don't?"  parried  Storrow,  resenting  that 
his  reserves  of  life  should  be  thus  trespassed  over  and 
trampled  upon. 

The  girl  slipped  down  off  the  coping-tiles.  As  she 
did  so  she  threw  away  her  cigarette-end  and  sighed 
audibly.  "If  you  don't,  you  ought  to  break  away  and 
amuse  yourself  with  one  of  that  bunch  downstairs.  It 
would  seem  more  like  a  square  game!  " 

"And  if  I  do  care?"  ventured  Storrow.     His  com- 


THE  NVINE  OF  LIFE  117 

panion  paused  at  the  stair-head,  arrested  by  the  solemnity 
of  his  voice. 

"  Oh,  in  that  case,"  she  retorted  with  an  effort  at 
lightness,  "  I  guess  I'm  merely  butting  into  somebody 
else's  business.  But  I've  said  my  little  say,  and  here's 
where  I  drop  out." 

She  slipped  down  the  narrow  stairway  into  the  sea  of 
light  and  sound  and  movement.  She  was  lost  in  the 
crowd  by  the  time  he  had  followed  after  her,  abstracted- 
eyed,  for  he  had  much  to  think  over.  He  circled  about, 
aimlessly,  to  the  door  of  a  dimly-lighted  cloak-room  when 
he  was  arrested  by  a  hand  on  his. 

"  Honey-boy,"  murmured  the  voice  in  the  uncertain 
light.  Storrow  turned  and  looked  at  a  velvety-skinned 
Lady  Pompadour  with  a  painted  ivory  fan  and  a  rope  of 
pearls  about  her  powdered  plump  throat. 

"What  is  it?"  he  coldly  inquired. 

"Can't  you  stay  and  amuse  me?"  she  deliberately 
challenged,  struggling  a  little  over  the  sibilants. 

Storrow  stared  down  at  her  as  she  laughed  her  foolish 
laugh.  Then  he  meditatively  responded  to  the  tug  at  his 
sash  and  sat  beside  her.  He  continued  to  stare  at  the 
soft  lines  of  the  matronly  bosom,  at  the  white  and  fastid 
ious-looking  fingers  heavy  with  rings,  at  the  swollen  and 
slightly  parted  lips.  He  even  laughed,  impersonally, 
when  she  pulled  the  heavy  wig  from  his  head  and  pushed 
her  unsteady  fingers  through  the  mat  of  his  hair.  Al 
ready  his  reactions  to  such  things  were  no  longer  the 
vivid  and  acute  mental  experiences  they  might  have  been 
a  few  short  months  ago.  He  was  more  directly  occupied, 
in  fact,  in  thinking  of  what  Pannie  Atwill  had  been  saying 
to  him.  When  the  woman  at  his  side  drew  his  passive 
face  close  to  hers  he  stared  into  the  unnaturally  dilated 
pupils  with  an  impersonal  mild  pity  which  she  apparently 
misinterpreted  for  amorous  response.  For  the  next  mo 
ment  her  plump  bare  arms  were  about  him,  encompassing 


ii8  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

him  in  a  smothering  clasp  which  it  took  an  effort  to 
escape  from.  Her  winey  pantings,  by  this  time,  had  be 
come  odious  as  well  as  odorous,  and  he  held  her  at  arm's 
length,  staring  shamefacedly  at  the  blowzy  mouth  and 
the  unsteady  eyes  which  were  beyond  the  fathom-line  of 
words.  Dazed  by  that  movement  of  repudiation,  she 
stared  back  at  him,  momentarily  sobered.  Then,  seeming 
at  last  to  comprehend  the  contempt  on  his  face,  she  made 
the  ghost  of  an  effort  towards  drawing  herself  up,  with 
dignity.  But  she  was  flot  sure  of  her  equilibrium  and 
she  staggered  as  she  rose  to  her  feet.  Before  she  had  re 
covered  her  balance  he  escaped  and  turned  and  strode  from 
the  room. 

Several  weeks  later  he  found  out  that  she  was  the 
wife  of  a  well-known  architect,  a  man  of  position  and 
wealth.  She  seemed  decorous  enough  in  her  black  fox 
furs  as  she  stepped  into  a  limousine,  after  a  Fritz- 
Kreisler  recital  at  yEolian  Hall.  Their  eyes  met  as 
the  car  circled  away.  He  could  not  tell,  from  her  ex 
pression,  whether  or  not  she  had  remembered  his  face. 
But  he  wondered,  in  his  bewilderment,  which  of  those 
two  sides  was  her  true  side.  The  problem,  however,  was 
less  disturbing  to  him  than  it  might  have  proved  even 
two  months  earlier  in  his  career. 

Storrow  made  his  way  back  to  the  punch-bowl,  more 
disturbed  by  that  malodorous  small  incident  than  he  cared 
to  admit  even  to  himself.  It  seemed  to  throw  him  out  of 
key  with  his  surroundings  and  he  felt  the  need  of  the 
warming  fluid  in  the  huge  cut-glass  bowl  to  wash  the 
chill  of  the  thing  out  of  his  body.  He  found  himself 
possessed  of  a  vague  disquiet  and  an  equally  vague  dis 
trust  of  the  influences  which  the  city  had  brought  to  bear 
upon  him.  Nor  was  this  diminished  by  the  memory  of 
what  Pannie  Atwill  had  been  saying  to  him.  Yet  when 
he  thought  of  Torrie  Throssel  he  thought  of  her  as  he 
had  last  seen  her  through  the  open  door  of  her  studio, 
protesting  that  she  would  have  to  stay  at  home  to  study 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  119 

her  part  and  finish  up  her  sewing.  The  thought  of  her 
bent  over  that  sewing,  needle  in  hand,  seemed  as  in 
congruous  as  it  was  appealing.  It  was  a  new  phase  of 
her  character  to  which  he  had  given  little  thought.  Yet 
it  was  something  on  which  he  found  it  not  unpleasant  to 
dwell,  until,  by  way  of  contrast,  he  stared  about  at  the 
company  of  which  he  found  himself  a  member.  He  be 
came  conscious  of  the  parade  of  flesh  in  half-costumed 
models  and  bobbed-hair  girl-artists  with  insurrectory  eyes 
and  voices  made  loud  by  wine.  The  earlier  freedom  of 
intercourse  which  had  seemed  so  like  sexlessness  to  him 
was  now  not  quite  so  innocent  of  aspect.  There  was 
more  abandon  in  the  dancing,  a  frank  and  somewhat 
dishevelled  surrender  to  voluptuousness  that  was  even 
more  marked  in  the  tired  and  sprawling  groups  in  the 
half -lighted  alcoves.  The  women  who  had  appeared  so 
rose-like  in  their  loveliness,  earlier  in  the  evening,  now 
seemed  to  carry  a  taint  of  lewdness.  Their  hair  was 
untidy  and  their  costumes  stained.  Undeniably,  too,  they 
smelt  of  perspiration  which  the  musky  aroma  of  their 
deodorants  failed  to  dissemble.  And  even  the  most  girl 
ish  of  the  women  began  to  look  old,  drained  of  their  vital 
young  forces  by  those  Bacchanalian  hours  where  the 
spirit  of  Carnival  finally  balanced  her  ledger,  exacting 
hostess  that  she  is,  and  demanded  final  payment  for 
excess.  Loosening  and  levitating  as  that  atmosphere 
was,  with  its  negroid  music  and  its  noisy  camaraderie, 
Storrow  was  still  insufficiently  touched  by  its  spirit  to 
overlook  its  laboured  and  strident  lightheartedness.  It 
had  the  trick,  when  the  music  stopped,  of  flattening  out 
into  over-coloured  uglinesses.  The  joy  that  it  harboured 
had  to  be  kept  spinning,  as  a  top  is  kept  spinning,  or  it 
tumbled  heavily  and  lay  inert  along  its  dusty  floors. 
Storrow  found  himself  asking  if  this  was  the  New  York 
he  had  come  in  quest  of,  and  if  these  were  the  illustrious 
from  whose  lips  he  had  once  hoped  to  drink  wisdom. 
Almost  as  if  in  answer  to  that  question  he  found  him- 


120  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

self  confronted  by  Chester  Hardy  with  a  regal-looking 
woman  on  his  arm. 

''  Storrow,  will  you  guard  Miss  Klennert  from  this 
army  of  outlaws  until  I  find  her  chauffeur  for  her?  " 

Storrow  recognized  the  Broadway  star,  as  she  held  out 
her  hand  to  him.  from  the  familiar  enough  pictures  in 
the  magazines.  She  complained,  in  a  surprisingly  full 
and  throaty  voice,  of  being  a  little  tired  of  the  crowd  and 
noise. 

"  The  Anglo-Saxon  can't  quite  get  away  with  it,  can 
he?"  remarked  Hardy,  lingering  for  a  moment  to  view 
the  multi-coloured  mass  of  merrymakers  about  them. 

"  It  seems  to  need  a  touch  of  the  Latin,"  assented  Miss 
Klennert. 

"  I  was  wondering,"  observed  Storrow,  "  if  it  wasn't 
because  they  worked  so  hard  that  they  found  it  necessary 
to  play  so  hard." 

"  Wait  until  the  side-show  starts,"  called  back  the  de 
parting  Hardy. 

"  You're  right  in  a  way,"  said  the  Broadway  star,  turn 
ing  to  Storrow.  "  But  I'm  afraid  they're  not  all  work 
ers.  Donnie  Eastman,  I'm  sure,  never  worked  at  any 
thing  but  enjoying  life  —  though  that,  I  suppose,  soon 
becomes  as  onerous  an  undertaking  as  any  man  can  face. 
And  these  girls,  for  instance,  seem  to  be  the  Greenwich 
Village  product,  who  try  to  give  you  Murger  and  Mont- 
mart  re  with  American  trimmings.  But  to  me  it's  always 
terribly  like  the  Cammerbcrt  that  comes  from  the  Con 
necticut  creameries.  The  note  seems  forced.  They 
make  ready  for  it  too  deliberately  and  work  over  it  too 
hard.  It  isn't  a  romp,  you'll  notice,  a  romp  which  young 
people  have  suddenly  decided  upon.  It's  something  as 
carefully  planned  and  staged  as  a  theatrical  production. 
And  there  are  too  many  oldish  men  about  to  let  it  keep 
its  air  of  innocence,  even  if  it  began  with  one.  I  could 
even  stand  Brownie's  Sodom-and-Gomorrah  atmosphere, 
for  that  merely  affects  one's  morals,  but  I  can't  stand 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  121 

air  like  this,  for  smoke  affects  my  throat,  and  that's  what 
I  have  to  make  my  living  with." 

"  It's  new  to  me,  of  course,"  admitted  Storrow,  "  but 
I  can't  help  comparing  it  with  the  Tea  Dance  and  the 
Sun  Dance  of  the  Indians  I've  been  living  with  up  in  my 
own  country.  There's  more  dignity  in  the  Indian  affair, 
I  think,  and  also  more  ecstasy.  And  with  the  Indian  it 
isn't  an  end  in  itself.  It's  ceremonial ;  it  stands  for 
something.  On  the  whole,  I'd  say  this  was  the  more 
barbaric  of  the  two." 

He  found  himself  being  inspected  by  a  pair  of  shrewd 
eyes  absinthe-green  in  colour. 

"  Of  course  it's  barbaric,"  acknowledged  the  woman 
at  his  side.  "  That's  why  it  has  swept  this  city  off  its 
feet.  It's  tarantism,  and  tarantism  spreads  like  any  other 
epidemic.  But  it's  not  worth  worrying  over  too  much, 
I  suppose,  for  the  thing  will  work  its  own  cure.  It  has 
to,  or  where  will  we  all  end  up?  " 

"  It  has  the  trick  of  getting  into  your  blood,  all  right," 
protested  Storrow,  edging  away  from  what  seemed  like 
useless  philosophying. 

"  What  has?  "  He  could  feel  the  disdainful  absinthe- 
green  eyes  once  more  judicially  inspecting  his  person. 

"  The  being  keyed  up  to  carnival  pitch,  even  if  it  is 
helped  along  by  the  punch-bowl." 

"  Since  you  have  mentioned  the  punch-bowl,"  an 
nounced  the  cool-eyed  woman  beside  Storrow,  "  look  at 
the  girl  opposite  us  here,  trying  to  dance  with  that  man 
with  the  leopard-skin  over  his  shoulder.  I  don't  like 
women  when  they're  drunk.  I  don't  even  like  to  see 
them.  It  still  gives  me  a  shock,  the  same  as  —  as  that 
doddering  old  skeleton  in  the  Beau  Brummel  get-up." 

Storrow  followed  the  line  of  her  vision  and  stared 
at  the  arresting  enough  figure  which  had  just  entered  the 
room. 

''  That's  Modrynski,"  he  said,  with  a  vague  sense  of 
chilliness  in  his  bones. 


122  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  I  know  it,"  admitted  the  wistful-eyed  woman,  "  and 
I  imagine  there's  a  moral  in  him  if  you  cared  to  find  it." 

More  eyes  than  Storrow's  stared  at  Modrynski  as  he 
made  his  entrance  into  the  room.  He  carried  a  shep 
herd's  crook  tied  with  dangling  white  ribbon,  and  was 
dressed  in  cream-coloured  knee-breeches,  a  satin  tunic 
with  lace  at  the  cuffs  and  neck,  a  brocaded  waistcoat,  silk 
stockings,  and  very  pointed  pumps  with  silver  buckles. 
A  heavily  powdered  periwig  ornamented  his  bald  head 
and  on  one  flaccid  cheek  a  beauty-patch  had  been  pasted. 
He  seemed  to  realize  that  he  was  the  momentary  target 
of  that  company's  attention,  for  he  made  an  effort  to 
enter  the  room  jauntily,  with  his  head  high  and  his  thumb 
and  forefinger  daintily  touching,  as  though  in  the  act  of 
dispensing  a  pinch  of  snuff.  But  a  slight  palsy  shook  the 
fastidiously  poised  hand.  The  decrepid  legs  in  the  shim 
mering  silk  stockings  were  without  spring. 

The  woman  beside  Storrow  stirred  uneasily. 

"  He  makes  me  think  of  a  Watteau  fan  that's  been 
used  as  a  fly-swatter,"  she  meditatively  observed.  Then 
she  added,  almost  with  a  shudder,  "  And  there  are  the 
flies,  still  clustering  about  him !  " 

To  the  equally  meditative  Storrow  he  seemed  like  a 
figure  of  Father  Time,  with  a  Follies-Berg  ere  crook  in 
stead  of  the  scythe  of  the  .Reaper.  But  he  seemed  well 
enough  known  to  the  rest  of  the  room,  especially  the 
younger  girls  in  the  more  audacious  costumes,  for  they 
were  clustering  about  the  senile  old  figure,  chippering 
like  sparrows,  demanding  him  as  a  partner.  He  picked 
out  a  plump  young  brunette  and  danced  with  her.  But 
the  too  rapid  movements  of  those  too  modern  dances 
were  over-much  for  him.  He  had  to  come  to  a  stop, 
breathing  wheezily  through  his  blue-nostrilled  nose,  lean 
ing  a  little  on  his  uproariously  laughing  partner,  who  kept 
possession  of  him  against  all  rivals  and  finally  piloted 
him  in  the  direction  of  the  punch-bowl.  There  Storrow 
stood  watching  the  withered  figure  in  lace  and  ruffles, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  123 

with  a  circle  of  petticoated  youth  crowding  about  his 
palsied  uplifted  fingers  as  he  drank. 

"  I  wonder  if  you  get  what  I  mean?  "  asked  the  woman 
at  Storrow's  side,  out  of  the  silence  which  had  fallen 
over  the  two  as  they  watched. 

"  I  think  I  see  the  point,"  acknowledged  Storrow, 
catching  sight  of  Hardy  as  he  elbowed  his  way  towards 
them.  The  newcomer  seemed  to  realize  the  object  of 
their  attention.  He  too  wheeled  about  and  took  a  turn, 
before  carrying  off  the  level-browed  actress  with  the  cool 
green  eyes,  in  inspecting  Modrynski  and  the  circle  about 
Modrynski. 

"  And  think  of  the  knowledge  that  was  once  packed 
away  in  that  poor  old  skull  1  "  commented  Hardy,  as 
much  to  himself  as  to  the  others. 

"  It  makes  you  wonder  if  it's  all  worth  while,"  ob 
served  the  no  longer  youthful  Miss  Klennert  as  she  gath 
ered  up  her  skirts.  The  movement  was  unconscious, 
born  of  a  life-long  contention  against  dusty  stage-wings. 

"  That  Helen  of  his  in  the  Louvre  and  those  two 
bronzes  up  in  the  Metropolitan  ought  to  be  answer  enough 
for  that,"  was  Hardy's  reply. 

"If  that's  what  you  judge  him  by!  " 

"  That's  the  way  we  prefer  to  judge  Poe  and  Villon 
and  Heine  and  half  a  hundred  others." 

"  Yes,"  agreed  the  departing  actress  as  she  smiled 
farewell  to  Storrow,  "  it's  the  sick  oyster  that  seems  to 
make  the  perfect  pearl,  isn't  it?  "  She  turned  again,  to 
give  emphasis  to  her  line,  as  though  it  were  an  exit-speech 
on  the  stage. 

Storrow  was  still  standing  there  when  Hardy  returned 
from  the  street-door.  The  latter,  for  a  silent  minute 
or  two,  contemplated  the  busy  scene  before  him. 

"How  does  it  impress  you?"  he  finally  asked  of  his 
companion. 

The  younger  man  hesitated.  "  I'd  rather  know  what 
you  think  about  it,"  he  parried,  none  too  keen  to  be  turned 


i24  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

about  like  a  test-tube  for  the  contemplation  of  purely  per 
sonal  reactions. 

"  I  don't  think  about  it,"  retorted  Hardy  with  a  laugh. 
"  I  prefer  to  jump  into  it  and  enjoy  it." 

"  Then  you  do  enjoy  it?  " 

"  Don't  you?" 

"  Candidly,  it  strikes  me  as  being  a  trifle  unclean," 

"A  welter  of  sex?"  prompted  Hardy,  with  his  mild 
and  impersonal  eye  on  the  younger  man's  face. 

"  If  you  care  to  put  it  that  way,"  acknowledged  Stor- 
row. 

"  Well,  that's  what  life  is,  really,  when  you  look  at  it 
with  the  lid  off.  And  the  lid  seems  to  be  off  here !  " 

They  were  jostled  by  a  bevy  of  screaming  girls  pur 
sued  by  a  Mephistopheles  in  a  red  cloak  much  stained 
with  punch. 

"Then  I  prefer  life  with  the  lid  on!"  Storrow  an 
nounced. 

Hardy  smiled. 

"  But  isn't  this  a  case  of  the  artist  hungering  to  get 
earth  under  his  feet,  after  a  heap  of  soaring?  Most  of 
those  men  are  workers.  They  demand  the  right  to  re 
lax,  to  play,  to  re-animalize  themselves.  And  that  strikes 
me  as  a  great  deal  for  men  to  accomplish.  Then  there's 
another  point  you  run  the  danger  of  overlooking.  If 
you're  nursing  the  artist's  hunger  for  a  genuine  under 
standing  of  the  human  soul,  you  can't  afford  to  inspect 
it  only  in  its  edifying  aspects,  when  it  has  its  company 
manners  on.  If  truth  is  what  you're  after,  you've  got  to 
see  it  all,  good  and  bad,  and  at  the  same  time  keep  your 
balance.  Our  disapproval  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
thing  as  a  spectacle.  This  is  society  in  the  undress,  the 
Freudian  wish  with  its  mask  off,  the  libido  which  even 
you  sculptors  and  painters  have  been  compelled  to  rec 
ognize.  If  you  want  to  understand  the  human  figure, 
you  have  to  study  it  in  the  nude.  In  the  same  way,  if 
you  want  to  understand  the  human  soul,  you've  got  to 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  125 

study  it  in  the  undress.  The  only  point  that's  important 
is  not  to  lose  your  viewpoint  as  —  well,  I  might  almost 
say,  as  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman.  That  allows  you  to 
organize  what  you  observe,  and  also  what  you  experi 
ence." 

Storrow,  turning  those  words  over  in  his  own  mind, 
felt  their  wisdom.  Yet  it  was  a  wisdom  with  a  sting  in 
it.  Hardy  was  preaching  at  him. 

"  And  there's  one  other  thing  I  want  to  mention,  while 
we're  still  so  tangled  up  with  the  orders  of  the  day,"  the 
older  man  went  on.  "  Whatever  does  happen,  don't  let 
it  interfere  with  your  work.  Put  your  work  first,  and 
keep  it  first.  For  the  bigger  the  artist,  you'll  find,  the 
more  he'll  insist  on  —  I  was  going  to  say,  on  that  selfish 
ness,  but  it  would  be  better  to  say,  on  that  scheme  of 
sel  f -preservation. ' ' 

Pannie  Atwill,  passing  at  that  moment,  lightheartedly 
threw  a  kiss  from  her  clustered  finger-tips  to  the  thought 
ful-eyed  Captain  Kidd.  But  that  scourge  of  the  high 
seas  did  not  seem  to  see  the  movement. 


CHAPTER   TEN 

STORROW  went  home,  but  not  to  sleep.  As  he 
mounted  the  gloomy  stairways  that  led  to  his 
studio  he  stopped  suddenly,  sniffing  in  the  dark 
ness.  There  was  an  unmistakable  smell  of  gas  about 
the  building.  That  was  one  of  the  drawbacks,  he  men 
tally  remarked,  in  living  in  those  ramshackle  old  ruins. 
There  was  always  the  promise  of  defective  plumbing,  the 
evidence  of  repairs  deferred.  And  somewhere,  without 
a  doubt,  a  pipe-joint  had  sprung  a  leak. 

Once  inside  his  studio,  he  crossed  to  the  corner  of  the 
room  where  a  panelled  clothes-horse,  covered  with 
painted  burlap,  shut  off  from  general  view  the  kitchenette 
which  held  his  small  gas-stove.  He  switched  on  the  light 
and  examined  this  stove  carefully,  to  make  sure  the  leak 
was  not  within  his  own  territory.  There,  however,  he 
found  nothing  wrong.  The  air  within  the  studio,  in 
fact,  was  quite  untainted. 

Frowning,  he  advanced  towards  the  oblong  of  tapestry 
on  his  wall.  He  threw  back  the  imitation  Gobelin  and 
sniffed  along  the  doorcracks.  This,  however,  did  not 
satisfy  him.  Without  giving  actual  thought  to  the  move 
ment  he  slipped  back  the  metal  bolt  and  tried  the  door. 

His  first  surprise  came  with  the  fact  that  it  opened. 
His  second  surprise  lay  in  the  discovery  that  the  lights 
were  on  in  Torrie  Throssel's  studio.  And  his  third  sur 
prise  took  the  form  of  Torrie  Throssel  herself,  standing 
within  three  feet  of  him.  She  was  wearing  a  man's 
bath-robe,  which  was  much  too  big  for  her,  doubled  about 
her  waist  and  held  in  by  a  girdle  of  plaited  silk.  Her 
preoccupied  face,  he  noticed,  was  almost  colourless.  The 

126 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  127 

studio  behind  her,  he  also  noticed,  impressed  him  as  be 
ing  over-lavish  in  its  decorations,  almost  theatrical  in  its 
studiously  achieved  Orientalism. 

"  I've  been  waiting  for  you,"  she  said,  very  quietly, 
and  with  a  smile  of  slow  constraint  that  was  new  to 
her. 

More  than  ever  before,  as  he  stood  staring  at  her,  he 
was  conscious  of  her  appeal.  But  the  preoccupation  on 
her  face  disturbed  him. 

"Is  anything  wrong?"  he  asked,  slowly  moving 
through  the  open  door.  If  that  portal  had  once  taken  on 
to  him  the  significance  of  a  Rubicon,  he  seemed  to  have 
forgotten  the  fact. 

"  I'm  worried,"  the  girl  told  him.  She  lifted  one 
shoulder,  deprecatingly.  "  It  may  be  foolish,  but  I  can't 
get  the  thing  out  of  my  head." 

"What  thing?"  asked  Storrow.  She  lifted  a  hand 
as  though  to  touch  his  arm,  or  to  grope  to  him,  if  not 
for  support  at  least  for  personal  contact.  But  to  his  dis 
appointment  she  changed  her  mind  and  drew  the  hand 
away  again. 

"  There's  been  a  smell  of  gas  coming  from  young 
Muselli's  studio,"  he  heard  her  saying.  A  selfish  wave 
of  relief  flowed  through  him  as  he  listened.  "  And  I'm 

—  I'm  afraid  something  may  have  happened." 
"What  could  happen?"  demanded  Storrow. 

'  That's  what  we  ought  to  find  out,"  she  replied. 

"  Then  you  know  him?  "  Storrow  asked,  the  prey  of  a 
quick  and  incongruous  pang  of  jealousy,  vaguely  unhappy 
at  the  recurring  thought  of  how  wide  was  the  undefined 
circle  of  her  acquaintances. 

"  No,"  she  explained.  "  But  I've  noticed  him  at  differ 
ent  times.  He  looked  worried  and  struck  me  as  being 

—  as  being  in  trouble  in  some  way.     And  I  know  that  he 
was  fond  of  those  two  canaries  of  his.     That's  the  one 
thing  that  made  me  wait  up  for  you." 

"  Canaries?  "  echoed  Storrow. 


128  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  Some  time  tonight  he  put  his  canary-cage  outside  his 
door,  before  locking  it." 

It  still  struck  Storrow  as  being  slightly  ridiculous. 
And  he  was  thinking  more  of  the  misty  violet  eyes  in  the 
side-light  and  the  misty  rose  of  the  grave  lips  than  he 
was  of  Muselli  and  his  canary-cage. 

"  So  that's  the  reason  you  waited  up  for  me !  "  he  said, 
slowly  propelled  towards  her  by  a  power  which  seemed  to 
lie  beyond  the  realm  of  his  own  will.  He  could  wonder 
at  that  power,  even  as  it  gripped  him,  making  him  feel 
that  this  body  of  his  was  still  an  embryo  in  reason  but 
centuries  old  in  emotion,  little  more  than  a  passive  river 
bed  through  which  coursed  the  currents  of  undecipher 
able  ancestral  tendencies. 

She  must  have  read  his  intention  on  his  face,  for  she 
lifted  her  two  hands  and  held  them  against  his  shoulders, 
as  though  to  arrest  his  advance. 

"  Not  now,"  she  said  in  a  whisper  that  had  a  quaver 
of  emotion  in  it. 

"  But  I've  been  thinking  of  you  —  all  night,"  he  whis 
pered  back. 

She  took  a  deep  breath. 

"  And  I  have  been  thinking  of  you,"  she  admitted, 
almost  unhappily.  "  I'm  always  thinking  of  you.  I 
can't  help  it." 

He  stood  staring  at  her,  with  a  rush  of  all  the  blood 
in  his  body  to  his  heart.  He  wondered  why,  at  a  mo 
ment  so  inapposite,  her  loveliness  should  beleaguer  him, 
why  she  should  seem  so  essentially  Woman,  in  the  volu 
minous  rough  garment  that  left  her  so  doe-soft  in  its 
loose  and  rugged  folds.  And  the  tinder  of  his  longing 
had  already  caught  fire  from  the  small  torch  of  her  con 
fession. 

"  We're  both  fighting  against  something  that's  too 
strong  for  us,"  he  protested,  almost  unconscious  of  what 
he  was  saying. 

"  I  know  it,"  murmured  the  woman  in  the  bath-robe 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  129 

as  rough-textured  as  a  fellah's  garment.  Her  head 
bowed,  not  in  shame,  but  more  in  submission  to  the  in 
evitable.  She  seemed  anxious  to  avoid  his  eyes.  But 
the  man  beside  her  slowly  lifted  her  face.  Then  with 
a  movement  that  seemed  equally  deliberate  he  drew  her 
towards  him.  Her  breath  caught,  sharply,  as  he  stooped 
and  kissed  her  in  the  warm  hollow  of  the  milk-white 
throat.  Then  his  arms  closed  about  the  muffled  body  and 
on  her  upturned  lips  his  awn  lips  closed.  He  remem 
bered  Modrynski.  He  remembered  Vibbard.  He 
thought  of  Chester  Hardy,  and  he  had  not  altogether 
forgotten  Pannie  Atwill.  But  they  seemed  figures  in 
finitely  remote,  crying  in  thin  and  faraway  voices  that 
meant  nothing  to  him. 

"  Beloved !  "  murmured  the  warmer  voice  against  his 
face.  She  spoke  drowsily,  out  of  a  contentment  so  com 
plete  it  seemed  wordless.  And  there  was  aggression, 
he  noticed,  in  her  sudden  passiveness  itself.  It  seemed 
to  demand  mastery  and  subjugation.  It  evoked  an 
cestral  savageries  from  straining  arms  that  seemed  al 
ready  cruel  in  their  unconsidering  strength. 

"  Beloved,"  he  repeated,  bending  back  her  body  in 
that  sudden  impulse  of  appropriation  until  she  was  com 
pelled  to  cling  to  him  to  keep  from  falling. 

He  stared  at  her,  like  a  sleeper  awakening,  when  she 
suddenly  stiffened  in  his  arms.  She  was  trying  to  twist 
away  from  him,  white  and  wide-eyed. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked. 

"That  man,"  she  gasped.  "We've  forgotten  him! 
We  don't  know  what  might  have  happened!  " 

He  reached  for  a  chair-back,  to  steady  himself.  It 
took  time  to  throw  a  bridge  of  thought  across  a  gulf  so 
wide. 

"  What  could  happen  ?  "  he  asked.  Yet  each  of  them 
knew,  as  their  eyes  met,  what  the  other  was  thinking. 

"  I  couldn't  get  any  answer  when  I  knocked,"  she  ex 
plained,  following  him  as  he  started  towards  the  door. 


i3o  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

He  stopped  only  for  a  moment,  to  pull  off  what  remained 
of  his  ridiculous  costume.  Then  he  went  out  to  the 
hall. 

He  found  the  smell  of  gas  very  strong  there.  He  was 
suddenly  impressed  by  the  tomb-like  quietness  of  the 
building.  Torrie  kept  one  hand  on  his  arm  as  he  made 
his  way  towards  Muselli's  door.  Beside  this  door  he 
saw  a  bird-cage.  One  of  the  canaries  twittered  sleepily, 
disturbed,  apparently,  by  movement  so  close  to  it. 

Storrow  lifted  the  cage  away  and  dropped  to  his  hands 
and  knees.  Then  he  sniffed  along  the  bottom  of  the 
door.  The  smell  of  gas  was  stronger  than  ever  there. 
His  face  was  grave  as  he  looked  up  at  the  girl  in  the 
bath-robe.  Mechanically  he  tried  the  door  and  found  it 
locked.  Then  he  backed  slowly  away,  facing  it. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  asked  Torrie  in  a 
whisper.  The  quietness  of  the  empty  halls  seemed  more 
oppressive  than  ever. 

"  I'm  going  to  break  in  that  door,"  he  told  her.  "  You 
mustn't  come  in,  remember." 

Before  she  could  reply  to  that  question  he  flung  himself 
full  force  against  the  locked  door.  The  impact  of  his 
bony  shoulder  against  the  antique  panelling  sent  it  in  with 
a  crash,  splintering  the  lock  away  from  the  woodwork. 
Storrow  peered  in  through  the  darkness,  but  could  make 
nothing  out. 

"  Do  you  want  matches  ?  "  whispered  Torrie  behind 
him.  He  turned  on  her  sharply. 

"  Matches?     And  blow  the  house  up?  "  he  demanded. 

"Well,  what  shall  I  do?"  she  whisperingly  inquired. 

"  Go  back  to  your  room  and  wait  for  me.  Go  back, 
or  you  may  be  sorry." 

Holding  his  breath  against  the  poisoned  air,  he  groped 
his  way  in  through  the  door  and  across  the  room  to  a 
window,  which  he  found  closed  and  locked.  It  took  him 
some  time  to  get  it  open.  When  he  did  so  he  was  glad 
to  lean  out  over  the  sill,  for  a  minute  or  two,  and  fill  his 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  131 

lungs  with  fresh  air.  Then,  feeling  the  night-breeze 
bellow  cleansingly  into  the  room,  he  crossed  to  the  door 
way  and  padded  along  the  wall,  groping  for  the  light- 
switch  which  should  be  there.  He  found  it  at  last  and 
pressed  his  finger  against  the  smooth-faced  button. 

He  stood  there,  still  half-turned  towards  the  wall,  star 
ing  over  his  shoulder.  On  the  floor,  between  him  and  a 
couch-bed  against  the  farther  wall,  he  saw  the  figure  of 
a  young  man  lying  on  its  face.  On  the  disordered  bed 
he  saw  a  woman,  partly  dressed.  She,  too,  was  young. 
Her  mouth  was  open  and  her  eyes  were  staring,  staring 
in  such  a  manner  that  for  a  moment  Storrow  thought  she 
was  still  alive. 

Storrow  felt  the  need  of  fresh  air  again,  and  he  stood 
at  the  open  window  for  several  seconds  before  turning 
off  a  gas-jet  connected  with  a  hot-plate  rubber-tube  from 
which  poison  was  still  hissing.  Then  he  crossed  to  the 
figure  on  the  floor  and  quietly  turned  it  over.  The  body 
was  quite  cold.  Storrow  knew,  even  before  he  put  his 
hand  over  the  heart,  that  any  movement  there  would  be 
out  of  the  question.  He  had  heard  somewhere  that  a 
dead  body  should  never  be  touched,  should  never  be 
moved,  until  a  coroner  or  a  police  officer  had  been  called 
in  to  inspect  it.  That  struck  Storrow  as  a  very  absurd 
proceeding.  The  position  of  the  man,  prone  there  on  the 
unclean  floor,  also  struck  him  as  unnecessarily  humiliat 
ing.  So  he  lifted  the  inert  body,  startlingly  light  to 
carry,  and  placed  it  decently  on  the  bed,  covering  it  with 
the  sheet.  He  noticed,  as  he  proceeded  to  do  the  same 
with  the  woman,  that  the  skin  of  her  bare  shoulder  was 
marble-cold  to  the  touch.  He  noticed,  too,  that  her  face 
was  much  more  tranquil  than  the  man's.  And  they  both 
struck  him  as  being  young,  absurdly  young,  for  any  such 
end.  And  it  was  the  end.  Everything  had  come  to  a 
stop  in  those  two  passive  and  unprotesting  frames.  The 
light  had  gone  out  in  the  skulls  behind  the  white  masks. 

He  turned  away  and  looked  more  methodically  about 


132  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

the  room.  On  the  table  he  found  two  letters,  sealed. 
He  saw  where  newspapers  had  been  wedged  in  the  door- 
cracks,  even  the  key-holes  stuffed.  The  entire  thing,  of 
course,  had  been  planned,  had  been  deliberately  carried 
through.  But  the  man,  Storrow  concluded,  must  at  some 
time  have  repented  of  his  bargain,  must  have  weakened 
and  made  an  effort  to  reach  a  window.  Storrow,  with  a 
leaden  weight  in  the  pit  of  his  stomach,  was  able  to 
dramatize  those  last  struggles.  He  even  tried  to  im 
agine  that  final  conference  together,  pondering  over  the 
problem  of  whether  it  was  placid  or  frantic,  cowardly  or 
courageous.  It  struck  him  as  strange  that  under  the 
same  roof  where  he  lived,  where  he  harboured  his  own 
small  hopes  and  fears  and  aims,  this  other  man  on  the 
bed  had  been  just  as  intensely  involved  in  the  machinery 
of  life,  had  just  as  ardently  asked  for  happiness.  And 
he,  Owen  Storrow,  within  a  biscuit's  toss  of  it  all,  had 
known  nothing  about  it. 

He  was  backing  slowly  away  from  the  bed  when  he 
felt  a  hand  on  his  arm.  He  found  Torrie  beside  him, 
her  lips  parted,  her  eyes  narrowed  with  a  curiosity  which 
she  could  not  control.  She  seemed  quite  collected  to  him, 
unnaturally  collected,  until  he  noticed  the  hand  holding 
the  folds  of  the  loose  bath-robe  over  her  bosom.  The 
fingers  of  that  hand,  he  could  see,  were  shaking. 

"  You  mustn't  come  in  here,"  he  commanded.  But 
she  disregarded  that  command. 

"  There  are  two  of  them,"  she  whispered  slowly,  a 
troubled  wonder  wrinkling  her  white  brow.  Step  by 
step  she  advanced  towards  the  bed,  as  though  impelled  by 
a  force  which  she  could  not  overmaster.  There  was 
something  so  suggestive  of  somnambulism,  of  intense 
preoccupation,  in  her  movements  that  Storrow  wondered 
if  this  could  be  the  first  time  she  had  stood  face  to  face 
with  Death.  Torrie  was  stooping,  with  her  chin  for 
ward,  as  though  peering  through  mist.  Then  she  stood 
up  straight,  still  frowning. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  133 

"  That's  Nona  Maynelle,"  she  whisperingly  intoned, 
drawing  closer  to  Storrow  with  a  movement  that  was 
both  wistful  and  unwilled,  stricken  with  the  sudden  need 
of  companionship.  But  all  the  time  her  eyes  were  on 
the  bed. 

"  Did  you  know  her?  "  asked  Storrow. 

"  She  was  a  model,"  was  the  abstracted  reply,  "  but  all 
last  season  she  was  at  the  Winter  Garden !  " 

Storrow  made  no  response  to  this.  He  had  awakened 
to  the  fact  that  they  were  wasting  time  over  incidentals, 
that  something  must  be  done,  and  done  at  once.  He  be 
came  almost  impatient  at  the  sustained  impersonal  curi 
osity  of  the  peering-eyed  girl  beside  him. 

"  But  are  they  dead?"  she  whispered  with  a  small 
wringing  motion  of  the  hands  as  imploratory  as  a  prayer. 
"Caw  they  be?" 

"  Hours  ago,"  said  Storrow  with  forced  curtness  of 
tone.  He  noticed,  in  the  ash-tray  on  the  table  where  the 
two  letters  lay,  eight  cigarette-stubs  side  by  side.  Stor 
row7  counted  them.  They  must,  he  concluded,  have  been 
very  deliberate  about  it  all.  His  curt  retort  to  Torrie, 
he  next  noticed,  had  stung  her  into  an  unlocked  for  and 
sudden  activity.  She  wrapped  the  loose  robe  closer  about 
her  waist,  retied  the  girdle,  and  crossed  to  the  table. 
There  she  took  up  the  two  letters,  seemed  to  understand 
at  a  glance  what  they  were,  and  promptly  thrust  them 
down  into  the  huge  pocket  of  her  garment. 

"  We  must  telephone  for  the  police,"  Storrow  was 
repeating  as  he  watched  her  go  to  the  hot-plate,  bend  over 
it,  and  then  carefully  close  the  stop-cock  at  the  lower  end 
of  the  rubber  tube.  Then  she  deliberately  pulled  the 
upper  end  of  the  tubing  from  the  gas-pipe  where  Storrow 
had  already  shut  off  the  flow. 

"What  are  you  doing?"  he  demanded.  She  was 
staring,  white-faced  and  thoughtful,  about  the  disordered 
room.  He  repeated  the  question  before  she  seemed  to 
hear  him. 


j34  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  That  makes  it  an  accident,"  she  said  pointing  towards 
the  dangling  hot-plate  tubing. 

"An  accident?"  he  repeated,  not  understanding  her 
intentions. 

"  I'm  not  going  to  have  this  whole  city  pawing  over 
those  poor  kids,"  she  tremulously  but  determinedly  an 
nounced.  "  They've  paid  enough  without  going  to  a 
Potter's  Field.  And  they've  got  families,  somewhere; 
they  must  have.  It'll  hurt  enough  to  know  they're 
dead,  without  having  people  say  they've  killed  them 
selves." 

Storrow,  staring  at  her,  found  strength  in  that  face 
in  which  he  had  once  seen  only  beauty. 

"  But  that  isn't  for  us  to  decide,"  he  argued,  recalling 
vague  impressions  as  to  the  law  that  obtained  in  such 
circumstances. 

"  We  liave  decided,"  she  protested,  almost  sharply. 

"  But  we  haven't  the  right,"  he  still  continued. 

"  Then  we'll  take  it,"  was  her  retort.  She  stood  silent 
a  moment,  after  another  quick  survey  of  the  room.  "If 
you  were  like  that,  wouldn't  it  seem  the  decent  thing  to 
do?  Wouldn't  you  be  glad  to  know  that  somebody  was 
doing  what  they  could  to  keep  your  name  clean  ?  " 

A  vague  and  chilling  sense  of  discomfort  flowed 
through  Storrow's  body  as  she  put  that  challenge  to  him. 
He  failed  to  see  that  it  would  make  any  difference.  And 
he  had  no  intention  of  ever  being  like  that.  But  he 
knew  it  was  useless  to  argue  with  her. 

"  You  can  telephone  from  my  room,"  she  was  saying 
to  him.  "  I'll  put  out  the  light  and  fix  the  door  so  it 
will  stay  shut.  And  neither  of  us  must  forget  that  it 
was  an  accident,  remember,  an  accident!" 

He  did  as  she  asked.  It  flashed  through  him,  as  he 
sat  waiting  for  his  connection  after  calling  up  Police 
Headquarters,  that  life  was  crowding  closer  about  him 
than  he  had  anticipated.  It  was  crowding  about  him 
raw  and  undraped,  with  its  beauty  and  ugliness  tragically 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  135 

tangled  together.  Already  that  night  somebody  had 
sought  to  inform  him  that  he  was  inspecting  life  with 
the  lid  off.  That  had  been  in  reference  to  the  foolish  and 
fantastic  spectacle  of  a  fancy-dress  ball,  the  occasion  of 
a  band  of  mummers  drinking  and  gyrating  to  jazz-band 
music.  But  here,  almost  at  his  own  door,  was  a  very 
different  kind  of  life  with  the  lid  off,  a  life  that  chilled 
the  marrow  and  benumbed  the  mind  instead  of  loosening 
the  tongue  and  tickling  the  toes  with  the  tinklings  of  rag 
time. 

He  strode  through  the  door  that  still  stood  open  be 
tween  the  two  studios.  He  pulled  off  the  heavy-topped 
boots,  contemptuously,  and  reached  for  his  slippers  and 
dressing-gown,  glad  of  the  warmth  of  that  heavier  gar 
ment  about  him.  It  seemed  a  long  time,  he  remembered, 
since  he  had  left  that  studio  and  gone  lightheartedly  down 
to  join  Hardy  in  his  waiting  taxi-cab.  It  impressed  him 
as  odd  that  utter  strangers  should  have  the  power  thus 
to  disturb  him,  even  in  their  death.  The  city,  he  saw, 
brought  one's  fellow-beings  a  little  closer  about  one. 
There  was  no  escape  from  its  tangled  interplay  of  in 
fluences.  It  was  a  tribal  convention  between  eternal 
rivalries.  It  was  a  melting-pot  in  which  personal  inde 
pendence  merged  and  flowed  into  a  drab  communal  com 
pound.  He  was  one  of  a  colony,  and  nothing  more. 
He  was,  in  a  way,  at  the  mercy  of  his  neighbours.  They 
were  always  to  be  reckoned  with,  for  they  had  the  power, 
obviously,  both  of  raising  him  up  and  casting  him  down. 
And  behind  it  all,  apparently,  was  the  demand  to  unify 
and  fulfil  life,  to  clarify  some  far-off  dream. 

Storrow,  as  he  thought  this  over,  sat  staring  vacantly 
at  the  wall  before  him.  It  was  Torrie's  voice  that  roused 
him. 

"  Here's  your  policeman,"  she  announced,  almost  re 
provingly,  from  the  doorway. 

Storrow  met  the  officer  at  the  head  of  the  stairs.  It 
was  much  simpler,  after  all,  than  he  had  expected.  He 


136  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

explained  how  he  had  come  in  late,  had  smelled  gas,  had 
traced  it  to  this  man  Muselli's  door,  and  had  felt  that 
something  might  be  wrong.  He  had  thought  it  best, 
when  they  couldn't  get  any  answer  to  their  knocks,  to 
break  in  the  door. 

"  And  this  is  what  we  found,"  explained  Storrow  as 
he  pushed  back  the  broken  panels,  reached  in,  and 
switched  on  the  electric-light.  The  heavy  blue-clad  fig 
ure  crossed  to  the  couch-bed.  Storrow,  who  noticed  for 
the  first  time  that  Torrie  stood  close  behind  him,  did  not 
follow.  He  stood  there  waiting  until  the  officer  came 
outside  again. 

"  They're  dead,  all  right,"  he  heavily  and  impersonally 
remarked  as  he  reached  into  his  hip-pocket  for  a  small 
note-book.  "Who  are  they?"  he  just  as  impersonally 
demanded. 

"  I  never  knew  them,"  Storrow  told  him.  "  I've  only 
been  in  this  building  a  few  weeks." 

"What's  your  name?" 

Storrow  gave  it. 

"What  d'  you  do  when  you  forced  that  door?"  was 
the  next  question.  Storrow  could  feel  the  hand  of  the 
girl  at  his  side  reaching  for  his  arm. 

"  I  opened  the  window  and  then  turned  off  the  jet 
where  the  gas  was  escaping." 

"What  next?" 

It  was  Torrie  who  answered. 

"  We  realized  there'd  been  an  accident  and  called  up 
police  headquarters,"  she  explained  in  tones  so  cool  that 
Storrow  stood  abashed  in  his  own  awkwardness.  The 
officer  looked  up  from  his  note-book,  with  a  quick  in 
spection  of  the  robe-clad  figure  clinging  to  Storrow's 
arm. 

"  It  was  an  accident  then?  "  he  asked. 

"Doesn't  it  look  like  one  to  you?"  questioned  the 
girl. 

"  Sure,"  he  assented  as  his  big  fingers  once  more  fell 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  137 

to  penciling  on  the  little  page.  "We'll  report  it  that, 
anyway." 

The  rest  of  the  explaining  was  done  by  Torrie.  Stor- 
row  awakened  to  the  fact  that  the  big-shouldered  officer 
was  not  unconscious  of  her  beauty.  He  stood  more 
ponderously  attentive  when  she  spoke.  He  waited  with 
taurine  patience  until  she  had  explained  what  was  already 
obvious  to  him.  He  even  showed  his  teeth  in  a  grin  of 
sympathy  when  he  said  he  supposed  she'd  rather  be  in 
bed  at  an  hour  like  this.  Then  he  turned  to  Storrow  and 
announced  that  the  latter  would  be  wanted  at  the  precinct 
station  sometime  during  the  next  day.  It  was,  he  ex 
plained  as  he  tucked  away  his  note-book,  merely  a  matter 
of  form.  He  stopped,  arrested  by  the  gleam  of  a  white 
ankle  as  the  girl  beside  Storrow  drew  the  over-volumin 
ous  folds  of  her  bath-robe  together. 

"  This  woman  your  wife?"  he  casually  inquired. 

Storrow  for  a  moment  seemed  not  to  have  heard  the 
question.  Then  he  just  as  casually  retorted,  "  Yes." 

It  was  not  until  they  were  alone  in  the  studio,  with  the 
door  closed  behind  them,  that  Storrow  noticed  the  con 
templative  and  almost  perplexed  look  on  Torrie's  face. 

"  Why  did  you  say  that?  "  she  asked  him. 

"What?" 

"  That  I  was  your  wife?  " 

"  I  wanted  to  protect  you,"  he  explained. 

"From  what?" 

He  found  the  question  not  an  easy  one  to  answer.  He 
floundered  through  a  phrase  or  two  about  "  intimacy  of 
attire  "  and  "  unusual  hour  for  being  together."  But 
speech  trailed  away  from  him  before  the  brooding  cold 
ness  of  her  glance. 

"  Isn't  it  rather  late  for  that  sort  of  thing?  "  she  asked 
him.  As  no  answer  came  to  that  question  she  sat  down, 
huddled  and  small,  with  a  short  shiver  of  weariness  run 
ning  through  her  body.  Storrow  noticed  the  heavy 
shadows  under  her  eyes. 


138  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  Are  you  tired  ?  "  he  asked,  so  gently  that  for  a  mo 
ment  she  glanced  up  at  him. 

"  It's  not  being  tired,"  she  said  with  a  look  over  her 
shoulder  towards  the  door.  "  It's  that  awful  room  — 
and  what's  in  it.  I  can't  get  the  thought  of  it  out  of  my 
head." 

"  I  know,"  he  told  her,  comprehendingly. 

"  We'd  both  be  better  with  some  of  this,"  she  said  as 
she  opened  a  black-wooded  cabinet,  and  filled  two  glasses 
with  brandy  and  seltzer.  Storrow  stood  staring  at  it. 
He  had  no  stomach  for  more  drink  that  night. 

"Are  you  sure  that  door  is  locked?  "  asked  the  girl, 
out  of  the  silence.  She  watched  him  from  under  lowered 
brows  as  he  slowly  crossed  the  room  and  reassured  her 
that  the  lock  was  on.  They  were  trying  to  bar  out,  he 
remembered,  something  which  no  wood  and  no  metal 
could  keep  away  from  them.  He  stared  at  the  other 
door,  the  communicating  door  between  the  two  studios 
that  stood  side  by  side.  He  saw  that  it  was  open.  There 
too,  he  felt,  they  had  tried  to  bar  out  something  which 
was  equally  impervious  to  obstruction.  The  house  was 
very  silent.  They  seemed  suddenly  as  alone  in  the  world 
as  though  a  hemlocked  wilderness  lay  about  them.  They 
seemed  alone,  yet  all  the  while  they  kept  thinking  of  that 
ghostly  company  which  the  same  roof  covered  and  the 
same  walls  harboured. 

Storrow  sat  down  in  a  high-backed  wing-chair,  with 
that  sobering  thought  of  death  heavy  on  his  mind.  Tor- 
rie,  without  moving,  watched  him  for  a  moment  or  two. 
Then  she  slipped  out  of  her  chair  and  crossed  listlessly 
to  where  he  sat.  There  she  dropped  to  the  rug  at  his 
feet,  with  her  arms  falling  over  his  knees.  She  twisted 
her  body,  in  a  series  of  birdlike  and  nestling  movements, 
until  she  was  comfortably  placed.  He  rested  a  hand  on 
the  dark  mass  of  her  hair,  looking  down  at  her  bowed 
head.  Slowly  she  looked  up  at  him  as  he  fell  to  stroking 
the  heavy  plaits. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  139 

"  I  can't  stay  alone  tonight,"  she  said  whisperingly  as 
her  arms  tightened  about  his  knees. 

He  stared  down  at  the  shadowy  face,  questioningly. 

"  I  can't,"  she  repeated,  with  vehemence.  "  I  can't  — 
with  those  in  there,  so  close  to  me!  " 

He  nodded  his  comprehension. 

"  It  must  be  almost  morning,"  he  said  in  a  voice  heavy 
with  fatigue.  "  Shouldn't  you  go  to  bed  ?  " 

Her  hands  relaxed  and  she  rose  slowly  to  her  feet. 
"  I  suppose  so,"  she  said  with  a  sigh.  Languidly  she 
reached  over  and  switched  out  the  lights,  leaving  only 
one  small  bulb  half-hidden  under  the  Ruskin-green  arm 
of  a  Hebe  in  bronze  on  the  console  table  beside  her. 
Storrow  in  the  half-light  could  see  her  untying  the 
knotted  girdle  about  her  waist.  He  heard  the  soft  fall 
of  the  bath- robe  as  she  flung  it  across  a  chair-seat,  the 
faint  whine  of  covered  metal  springs  as  she  sank  on  the 
low  Russian  bed  of  carved  teak-wood. 

He  rose  slowly  as  she  called  to  him,  raising  on  one 
arm  in  the  blue-green  light  so  rich  with  shadows. 

"  By  the  way,  there's  a  letter  or  something  on  the 
table  there  for  you.  I  almost  forgot." 

Storrow  groped  his  way  towards  the  table. 

"  How  did  it  get  here?  "  he  asked. 

"  Somebody's  chauffeur  or  coachman  or  thing-um-abob 
brought  it  about  an  hour  after  you'd  left  for  Brownie 
Tell's,"  was  the  casual-noted  reply  from  the  Russian 
bed.  "  I  heard  them  at  your  door  and  said  I'd  deliver 
it  when  you  got  back." 

Storrow  found  the  sealed  envelope,  partly  covered  by 
an  ash-tray,  and  opened  it.  He  had  to  hold  the  tinted 
page  close  to  the  small  light  under  the  Hebe's  arm  before 
he  could  make  it  out.  Then  he  saw  that  it  was  from 
Charlotte  Kirkner. 

"  Mother  is  not  at  all  well,"  ran  the  note,  "  and  is 
anxious  to  see  you.  We've  had  to  give  up  all  thought  of 
going  South.  Would  it  be  too  much  to  ask  you  to  run 


HO  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

out  tonight  with  Munsell?  It  may  be  important." 
Storrow  put  the  note  back  in  its  envelope  and  crossed 
to  the  window.  He  stared  out  over  the  serrated  skyline 
of  housetops  where  a  faint  grey  in  the  sky  showed  the 
earliest  light  of  morning.  The  night  was  already  over. 
Storrow  pushed  the  note  down  in  his  dressing-gown 
pocket. 

"  You're  not  going  to  leave  me?"  asked  a  drowsily- 
cadenced  voice  out  of  the  heavier  darkness  of  the  room 
behind  him. 

Slowly  Storrow  turned  and  crossed  to  the  Russian 
bed.  He  reached  for  the  wing-chair  and  sank  down  in 
it.  As  he  did  so  a  hand  was  thrust  into  his,  a  warm 
hand,  softly  cushioned  about  the  thumb-joint,  passive 
only  in  its  motionlessness.  He  held  it,  silent  and  thought 
ful,  as  he  sat  there  waiting  for  the  daylight. 


It  was  the  following  afternoon  that  Storrow,  in  answer 
to  Charlotte's  message,  made  his  way  over  to  Brooklyn. 
He  waited  ill  at  ease  in  the  huge  library  of  the  Kirkner 
home.  It  was  Medberry,  as  immobile  as  ever,  who 
brought  a  somewhat  tardy  message  down  to  him.  Mrs. 
Kirkner  had  taken  a  turn  for  the  better.  But  the  doctor 
had  given  orders  that  she  was  not  to  be  disturbed. 

Storrow,  weighed  down  by  a  sense  of  estrangement, 
asked  if  he  could  possibly  see  Charlotte.  Miss  Kirkner, 
he  was  told,  was  not  at  home.  But  Medberry  would  see 
to  it  that  any  message  which  might  be  left  would  reach 
her  on  her  return. 

Storrow,  beyond  an  expression  of  conventional  re 
grets,  knew  of  no  message,  and  with  no  ponderable  lessen 
ing  of  restraint  took  his  departure.  Two  days  later  he 
received  a  short  note  from  Charlotte  explaining  that  her 
mother  had  so  greatly  improved  that  she  would  be  taken 
South  as  soon  as  she  could  be  safely  moved.  She  hoped 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  141 

Owen  would  have  a  happy  and  successful  winter.  It 
struck  Storrow  as  odd  that  the  expression  of  a  hope  so 
benignant  should  carry  with  it  so  keen  a  barb  of  discom 
fiture  to  its  recipient. 


CHAPTER   ELEVEN 

THE  sound  of  gasps  and  wails,  of  pleadings  and 
imprecations,  echoed  through  the  gloomy  old 
building  off  Madison  Square. 

"  Awful !  "  shouted  a  man's  voice  when  the  agony  had 
come  to  an  end.  "  Simply  awful !  " 

"  Then  why  can't  you  let  me  do  it  my  own  way  ?  "  de 
manded  the  tearful  voice  of  a  woman. 

"  That's  just  what's  the  matter.  You  haven't  got  any 
way.  If  you'd  pull  a  few  feathers  from  the  wings  of 
your  imagination  and  stick  them  in  the  tail  of  your  judg 
ment,  you  might  get  somewhere." 

"  Then  stop  ridiculing  me !  " 

"  I'll  ridicule  you  as  long  as  you  don't  do  things  right. 
I'm  the  big  ki-ky  of  this  kennel,  and  you're  going  to  do 
what  I  say." 

"If  you're  claiming  to  be  a  dog,  I  agree  with  you,"  was 
the  impassioned  retort. 

"  Then  we'll  let  it  go  at  that  and  get  back  to  our  work. 
And  just  save  a  little  of  that  pep,  please,  for  professional 
purposes !  " 

It  was  the  labour-pains  of  Art,  and  the  olive-skinned 
Hebrew  known  as  Herman  Krassler  come  to  coach  Torrie 
Throssel  in  her  new  part.  He  had  worked  with  her  an 
hour,  at  first  quietly  and  patiently,  then  excitedly  and  ex 
plosively,  before  Storrow  in  the  next  room  fully  under 
stood  what  was  taking  place.  He  realized,  during  what 
became  an  incredibly  noisy  scene,  that  the  fiery-hearted 
little  man  of  the  stage  was  putting  forth  every  effort  to 
impart  fire  to  the  protesting  and  somewhat  bewildered 
girl  confronting  him.  It  was  an  emotional  "  bit,"  ap- 

142 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  143 

parently,  and  the  novice  was  neither  sure  of  her  way  nor 
fully  conscious  of  what  was  expected  of  her. 

"  Now,  try  that  again,  and  for  the  love  of  God  get 
a  little  life  into  it!"  Storrow  could  hear  her  all  but 
exasperated  coach  demand. 

"  I  tell  you,  Hermie,  I  can't!  I  can't  do  it!  "  was  the 
almost  sullen  protest  of  the  girl,  in  a  voice  already  heavy 
with  fatigue. 

"  You've  got  to,"  commanded  the  other.  And  he  pro 
ceeded  to  goad  and  taunt  her  into  renewed  activity,  jock 
eying  her  into  position  again  and  again  as  a  rider  urges 
a  spirited  hunter  up  to  an  exceptionally  hazardous  jump. 

Storrow  resented  that  arbitrary  assumption  of  control 
over  the  mind  and  body  of  the  girl.  He  began  to  com 
prehend  what  was  taking  place  on  the  other  side  of  the 
wall.  He  realized  the  domination,  for  the  moment  at 
least,  of  that  quicker  will  over  the  less  adroit  will  of  his 
pupil.  Krassler  was  trying  to  empty  a  human  body  of 
its  own  personality  and  thrust  an  altogether  different  one, 
a  make-believe  one,  into  its  place.  He  was  taking  pos 
session  of  her,  manipulating  her,  reassembling  her  to  suit 
his  own  ends. 

"  No !  No !  No !  Don't  whine  that !  That's  your 
big  line  and  you've  got  to  get  some  heart-break  into  it. 
Don't  sing  it  like  a  sick  parrot.  Feel  it,  woman,  feel  it !  " 

"  I  can't  feel  it.  It's  a  fool  of  a  line,  and  you  know 
it!" 

"  It's  certainly  a  fool  of  a  line  when  you  read  it  that 
way,"  was  the  other's  impassioned  retort.  "  Any  line 
would  be.  But  the  line's  there,  and  you've  got  to  squeeze 
the  last  drop  of  life  out  of  it.  That's  what  God  gave 
you  a  brain  for.  So  go  back  and  try  it  again.  And 
don't  swallow  your  voice  as  though  you  had  a  hot  potato 
against  your  tonsils.  Throw  it  out  —  straight  out  in 
front  of  you.  Throw  it  out  so  it'll  hit  eight  hundred 
people  flat  in  the  face." 

It  was  tried  again,  and  Krassler  groaned  aloud.     Then 


H4  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

still  again  came  explanation,  expostulation,  the  lash  of 
mockery,  the  high-pitched  curt  commands.  And  again  a 
voice  which  did  not  seem  Torrie's  voice  pleaded  and  shook 
with  its  factitious  emotion,  rose  and  fell  with  its  waves 
of  purely  imaginary  woe,  choked  in  a  frantically  achieved 
imitation  of  a  sob. 

'  You're  getting  it,  girl,  you're  getting  it,"  cried  the 
excited  voice  of  Krassler.  "  Now  keep  on  and  go 
through  the  whole  scene.  .  .  .  Drop  your  voice  on  that, 
and  don't  move  until  you  come  to  the  words  '  I  never 
knew  —  I  never  knew'.  .  .  .  Keep  your  spine  stiff.  .  .  . 
No,  no,  you  can't  beat  your  chest-bone  like  a  baboon. 
You  can't  do  that  on  Broadway  —  they  canned  that 
twenty  years  ago.  .  .  .  Look,  like  this.  .  .  .  And  freeze 
on  that  word  '  Forever  ' —  don't  move  a  muscle  until 
Randolph  flings  the  letters  in  your  face !  " 

Storrow  overheard  it  all  with  a  vague  disquiet  in  his 
soul.  He  more  and  more  resented  this  seeming  appro 
priation  of  Torrie's  personality,  even  in  the  name  of  Art. 
He  resented  the  thought  of  her  being  exploited  and 
swayed  and  harassed  by  this  professional  exploiter  of 
emotion.  It  seemed  to  involve  the  submergence  of  her 
own  individuality.  It  tended  to  translate  her  into  some 
thing  new,  something  chillingly  remote.  And  the  thought 
of  any  such  estrangement  was  already  painful  to  him. 

He  paced  his  room,  trying  to  think  the  thing  out,  trying 
to  persuade  himself  that  it  was  something  more  than 
sheer  physical  jealousy.  His  heart  was  still  a  parliament 
of  these  silent  debating  voices  when  he  heard  Krassler 
saying  good-night  to  Torrie.  It  was  not  Krassler  the 
impresario  but  Krassler  the  man  who  spoke  now,  cor 
dially  and  a  little  wearily,  as  he  laughingly  complained 
that  even  on  Broadway  you  have  to  break  your  eggs  be 
fore  you  can  make  your  omelette.  At  almost  the  same 
moment,  in  the  contentious  forum  of  his  own  soul,  Stor 
row  suddenly  perceived  that  there  was  only  one  way  out 
for  him. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  145 

Torrie  would  have  to  marry  him. 

Up  to  that  time,  indeed,  he  had  given  scant  thought  to 
marriage,  as  marriage.  He  had  been  played  on  but 
lightly  by  the  social  forces  about  him,  and  the  established 
covenant  of  mating  seemed  to  him  as  essentially  a  social 
ceremony.  Yet  in  his  case,  he  felt,  it  was  something 
distinctly  more  than  a  movement  to  legalize  the  illicit. 
He  nursed  a  natural  enough  desire  to  be  honest  and 
aboveboard  in  his  human  relationships.  But  there  was 
a  more  personal  aspect  of  the  situation.  He  was  already 
in  a  position  from  which  he  could  not  extricate  himself, 
a  position  in  which  he  found  no  wish  to  extricate  him 
self.  Retreat,  under  the  circumstances,  was  impossible. 
And  since  he  could  not  go  back,  since  what  had  been  done 
had  been  done,  he  must  now  push  through  to  the  end  of 
the  tunnel.  What  he  had  taken  must  be  made  entirely 
and  unquestioningly  his  own.  It  would  surely  be  a  clarify 
ing  of  the  situation,  he  felt,  that  establishment  of  pro 
prietorship.  It  would  bring  things  down  to  earth.  It 
would  materialize  what  otherwise  might  stand  over- 
romantic  and  over-exacting.  It  would  do  away  with 
those  too  disturbing  accidental  meetings  which  were  re 
membered  now  as  storms  and  tempests  are  apt  to  be  re 
membered.  Meetings  such  as  those,  he  felt,  would  in 
some  way  lead  to  tragedy. 

They  would  have  to  marry,  if  only  to  save  themselves. 
The  wild  bird  would  become  a  tame  one,  but  the  music 
of  life  would  be  forever  at  his  elbow,  would  be  tied  to 
him,  would  become  a  part  of  him.  He  felt  the  need  of 
superseding  all  other  claimants  to  Torrie's  time  and  at 
tention.  She  had  spelled,  and  still  spelled,  wonder  and 
rapture  to  him.  And  he  was  still  youthful  enough  to 
demand  that  this  same  wonder  and  rapture  of  the  passing 
moment  should  be  made  absolute  as  well  as  permanent. 
It  was  a  strange  situation,  he  acknowledged.  It  loomed 
before  him  as  something  almost  too  disturbingly  new  to 
be  intimately  inspected.  Yet  it  was  merely  the  ancient 


146  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

miracle  of  life  repeating  itself.  A  man  had  fallen  in  love 
with  a  woman,  and  wanted  that  woman  as  his  own. 

He  crossed  to  the  communicating  door  and  seized  the 
knob.  Then,  after  a  moment  of  hesitation,  he  inquir 
ingly  tapped  on  the  panel. 

"  May  I  come  in?  "  he  asked. 

"Of  course,"  answered  Torrie's  voice,  unnaturally 
quiet  through  the  muffling  panel  of  wood. 

Storrow  opened  the  door  and  stepped  into  her  studio. 
She  was  partly  undressed,  but  this  did  not  deter  him. 

"What  is  it,  Honey?"  she  asked,  arrested  by  the 
look  of  solemnity  on  his  face,  staring  at  him  over  her 
bare  shoulder. 

He  stood  with  his  back  to  the  wall,  with  a  dueller's 
space  between  them. 

"  I  want  you  to  marry  me,"  he  said,  more  abruptly 
than  he  had  intended  to  say  it. 

She  stopped  in  the  act  of  unhooking  her  corsets,  her 
torso  indrawn  with  that  characteristic  visceral  writhe 
and  contraction  which  always  impressed  him  as  reptilious. 
She  looked  up  at  him,  wide-eyed  with  wonder.  Then, 
still  without  speaking,  she  slowly  continued  to  release  the 
steel-banded  cuirass  of  brocaded  silk  from  her  body, 
standing  deep  in  thought  as  she  dropped  it  on  the  chair 
beside  her. 

"  What  good  would  that  do  ?  "  she  finally  asked. 

"  Every  good  in  the  world,"  he  contended. 

She  reached,  still  thoughtful-eyed,  for  the  tissue  of  silk 
and  lace  that  lay  within  reach  of  her  hand.  He  turned 
and  walked  to  the  end  of  the  room,  as  though  some  new 
relationship  had  given  rise  to  some  new  abashment  in 
him.  There  he  stood  with  his  back  to  her  as  she  ab 
stractedly  proceeded  with  her  disrobing. 

He  resented,  without  quite  deciphering  the  reason  for 
doing  so,  that  offhanded  intimacy  of  action.  Yet  it  was 
both  too  unconscious  and  too  characteristic  to  be  set 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  147 

down  as  audacity.  It  was  innocent,  he  reminded  him 
self,  because  it  was  unstudied.  But  he  remained  reso 
lutely  turned  away  from  the  soft  confusion  of  sounds 
behind  him. 

"Will  you  marry  me?"  he  repeated. 

His  ear  caught  the  sigh  that  escaped  her :  it  was  almost 
one  of  forbearance. 

"  Wait  until  I  crawl  into  my  downy,  Honey.  I'm  so 
dog-tired!  " 

He  waited.  He  waited  until  he  heard  her  fatigued 
little  coo  of  subsidence,  listening  to  the  complaint  of  the 
burdened  coil-springs  with  a  sense  of  history  repeating 
itself. 

"  Owen,"  she  called  out  to  him. 

He  swung  about,  nettled  by  a  feeling  of  frustration. 
But  he  made  no  movement  towards  her.  She  lay  with 
her  hand  supporting  her  head,  studying  him  out  of  veiled 
eyes. 

"  Come  here,"  she  said  in  a  strangely  altered  voice. 

Slowly  he  crossed  to  her  side,  puzzling  as  to  what 
unknown  hand  could  be  wringing  the  glory  out  of  a 
situation  from  which  he  had  once  anticipated  both  rap 
ture  and  triumph.  She  too  seemed  to  feel  that  something 
was  lacking  from  that  encounter,  something  rare  and 
indefinable,  something  already  vanished  and  evaporated. 
She  dropped  back  on  her  pillow,  almost  listlessly,  and 
lay  there  for  a  moment  or  two  without  speaking. 

"  Do  you  love  me?  "  she  finally  demanded. 

"  You  know  I  do,"  was  Storrow's  retort. 

"But  are  you  sure?  " 

"  I'm  trying  to  prove  it." 

"How?" 

"  By  asking  you  to  marry  me,"  he  contended,  wonder 
ing  at  the  combative  note  which  he  could  not  keep  from 
his  voice. 

"  What  difference  can  that  make  ?  "   she  demanded. 


148  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  Having  some  old  man  mumble  a  few  words  and  then 
poking  a  metal  ring  on  my  third  finger?  Would  it 
change  us,  one  single  bit  ?  " 

"  It  would  change  everything,"  he  contended,  amazed 
at  what  seemed  sheer  paganism  in  her.  Once  more  she 
fell  to  studying  his  face.  In  it,  apparently,  she  read  all 
the  arguments  which  his  tongue  had  failed  to  utter,  for 
her  own  milky  brow  was  slowly  clouded  with  a  frown  of 
thought. 

"  Krassler  would  kill  me,"  she  said,  as  much  to  herself 
as  to  the  man  beside  her. 

"What  has  Krassler  got  to  do  with  it?"  quickly 
countered  the  other. 

That  question  appeared  to  be  no  easy  one  to  answer. 
It  seemed  to  involve  a  studious  turning  of  the  matter  over 
and  over  in  her  mind. 

"  Can't  you  see,  Owen,  what  Krassler's  doing  for  me  ? 
He's  trying  to  make  me  into  an  actress.  He  says  he's 
giving  me  the  chance  of  a  lifetime.  He  says  he'll  pitch 
me  head-first  into  Broadway  if  I'll  only  put  myself  in 
his  hands.  He  even  claims  he  can  make  me  a  star,  in 
side  of  two  seasons." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  '  putting  yourself  in  his 
hands'?" 

She  was,  apparently,  making  it  a  point  to  be  very  pa 
tient  with  him. 

"  I  mean  doing  my  work,  my  part,  the  way  he  wants 
it  done,  the  way  it  ought  to  be  done." 

"  I  imagine  there  are  more  Krasslers  than  one  in  this 
city,"  retorted  Storrow,  embittered  by  some  incongruous 
sudden  sense  of  estrangement  between  him  and  the  woman 
so  close  to  him. 

"  That's  where  you're  wrong,"  she  amended. 
"  There's  only  one  Krassler.  I  may  be  empty-headed, 
but  I've  brains  enough  to  see  that.  If  I  can  ever  do 
anything  on  the  stage  it's  only  because  he's  standing 
behind  me.  He  knows  acting,  every  trick  and  move  of 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  149 

it.  He  makes  me  feel  that  I'm  only  a  mask  and  that 
it's  his  spirit  stepping  inside  that  mask  and  doing  what 
I  ought  to.  He  holds  me  up  where  I'd  go  down  in  two 
minutes.'' 

It  discomfited  Storrow  to  find  his  own  inner  conclu 
sions  thus  openly  reiterated. 

"  There  seem  to  be  several  hundred  that  Krassler  isn't 
holding  up,  as  you  put  it." 

"  But  don't  you  see,  Owen,  that  I'm  different?  Acting 
isn't  just  an  instinct ;  it's  an  art.  It's  an  art  you  acquire 
after  years  of  study.  And  what  chance  have  I  ever  had 
to  study  it  that  way?  What  training  do  you  ever  get 
out  of  stage  dancing  and  show-girl  parts?  What  good 
does  a  few  seasons  of  being  a  clothes-horse  or  a  front 
line  jumping-jack  ever  do  you  for  real  art,  for  real 
acting?  And  I  hate  the  very  thought  of  having  to  go 
back  to  that  sort  of  thing." 

"  But  you'll  never  have  to  go  back  to  that  sort  of 
thing,"  asserted  the  man  at  her  side,  resenting  even  this 
sudden  and  solemn  attitude  towards  an  art  which  he  had 
never  been  taught  to  accept  as  a  serious  one. 

There  was  an  air  of  luxuriousness  in  her  slow  move 
ment  on  the  bed. 

"  You'd  find  me  a  very  expensive  luxury,"  she  said, 
smiling  for  the  first  time. 

"  I'm  willing  to  face  that,"  he  retorted. 

"  But  would  it  be  fair  for  me  to  ask  you  to  face  it?  " 
she  asked.  "  We've  both  got  our  work,  and  we  both 
ought  to  be  free  to  follow  it." 

"  I'm  not  asking,"  he  contended,  "  for  any  surrender 
of  freedom.  What  I  want  you  to  do  it  for  is  really  to 
get  our  freedom  back  to  us,  to  get  our  feet  on  solid  ground 
so  we  can  use  our  hands  or  our  heads  when  we  feel  the 
need  for  it." 

She  seemed  unable  to  follow  his  line  of  thought. 

"Then  what  is  it  you  want?"  she  asked,  once  more 
with  a  wrinkled  brow. 


150  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"You!"  was  his  reply. 

The  weariness  went  out  of  her  face  at  the  vibrata  of 
feeling  which  had  crept  into  that  one  expository  cry. 

"  But  you  can  have  me,  Beloved  One,  for  the  asking, 
every  ounce  of  my  body  and  soul.  It's  all  yours!" 

"  That's  not  enough,"  he  surprised  her  by  replying. 

"  That  would  seem  a  great  deal  to  most  men,"  she  told 
him,  after  a  moment  of  silence. 

"  Then  you'll  have  to  regard  me  as  different  to  most 
men,"  he  persisted. 

"In  what  way?" 

"  In  wanting  to  keep  our  love  sane  and  clean  and  holy," 
he  found  himself  saying.  "  In  not  having  it  dragged 
down  to  any  Muselli  and  Nona  Maynelle  plane  —  and 
ending  as  you  saw  theirs  end." 

She  sat  up,  thinking  this  over. 

"  I'm  afraid,  Owen,  I'm  more  of  a  barbarian  than  you 
are.  It  doesn't  seem  the  least  bit  important  to  me,  so 
long  as  we're  true  to  each  other,  whether  we've  scratched 
our  names  in  some  fat  old  city  clerk's  register  or  not. 
That  may  make  " — 

"  Then  if  it's  that  trivial  to  you,"  he  interrupted,  "  why 
can't  you  respect  my  wishes  in  the  matter?  " 

"  But  it's  not  so  trivial,  in  one  way.  There's  my  work 
to  think  of.  People  aren't  interested  in  a  married  stage- 
star.  They're  not,  at  least,  unless  she's  a  great  artist, 
and  I  know  well  enough  I'm  not  that,  and  never  can  be. 
And  Krassler  would  never  stand  for  it,  even  from  the 
business  view-point.  It  would  end  everything." 

"  Then  why  not  let  it,  if  that's  the  absurd  condition  it 
imposes  on  you?  "  he  demanded  through  the  dust  of  his 
own  cyclonic  upheavals.  He  failed  to  decipher  latent 
reproof  in  the  quick  look  which  she  threw  at  him  over 
her  shoulder. 

"  Are  you  making  this,"  she  said  with  an  arrested 
judicial  note  in  her  voice,  "  a  choice  between  you  or  my 
work?" 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  151 

"  They  shouldn't  have  anything  to  do  with  each  other," 
he  countered.  "  There's  nothing  I'm  asking  you  to  give 
up,  except  an  endless  chain  of  evasions  and  humiliations 
and  sacrifices  of  self-respect.  And  I  don't  see  how  those 
things  can  help  any  woman  in  her  work!  " 

She  inspected  him  with  a  half -humorous  forbearance. 
Smiling  resignedly,  she  slipped  down  between  the  tumbled 
covers,  with  a  series  of  small  movements  touched  with 
impatience,  as  though  to  banish  discomfort  of  the  mind 
in  deliberately  achieved  comfort  of  the  body.  Then  she 
reached  languidly  out  and  took  possession  of  Storrow's 
hand. 

"  Stop  worrying  over  trifles,  Honey !  " 

He  drew  back,  freeing  his  hand. 

"  But  this  thing  has  to  be  settled,"  he  averred.  "  Will 
you  marry  me  ?  " 

She  opened  her  eyes  again. 

"Come  here,"  she  whispered.  "No  —  closer.  Still 
closer.  .  .  .  Do  you  love  me?  " 

"  You  know  I  do." 

"  But  you  must  say  it.  Say  it  and  say  it  again.  Tell 
it  to  me  in  some  different  way.  I  don't  seem  to  care  what 
happens  when  I  hear  you  say  that.  Do  you  love  me?  " 

She  turned  about,  heavily,  with  her  hands  clinging  to 
his  shoulders,  so  that  his  stooping  body  was  brought 
closer  to  hers.  "  Do  you  love  me?  "  she  reiterated,  with 
his  head  clasped  against  the  hollow  of  her  shoulder.  She 
held  him  there,  hungrily.  And  under  the  invisible  bat 
teries  of  the  old  appeal  the  old  capitulation  once  more 
took  place.  He  told  her,  with  a  sudden  flare-back  of 
passion,  that  he  loved  her  better  than  life  itself,  that  life 
without  her  would  mean  nothing,  that  he  wanted  her  as 
no  man  had  ever  before  wanted  woman. 

"  Then  I'll  marry  you,"  she  told  him  with  a  sigh  of 
moderated  surrender.  "  But  there's  one  thing  you  must 
promise  me,  Owen." 

"What  is  that?" 


152  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  For  the  next  few  months  at  least  no  one  must  know." 

He  was  less  ready  to  accede  to  this  than  she  had  ex 
pected. 

"  But  you  can't  keep  it  from  being  known,"  he  ex 
plained.  "  It  has  to  go  on  a  public  record  and  be  an 
nounced." 

"  Then  we'll  have  to  slip  over  to  Jersey  and  have  it 
done  there,"  she  told  him. 

"  But  don't  you  have  to  live  in  that  state  a  certain 
length  of  time  before  you  can  get  a  license?  "  he  asked, 
disturbed  by  the  air  of  the  illicit  clustering  about  what 
he  had  already  accepted  as  a  movement  toward  rehabilita 
tion. 

"  No,  not  in  Jersey.  I'm  almost  sure  of  that.  But  if 
I'm  wrong  we'll  have  to  find  a  state  where  you  don't. 
And  I  won't  use  my  stage-name  of  '  Throssel,'  but  my 
own  name  of  Roder,  Millie  Roder.  And  that  ought  to 
pretty  well  cover  up  the  tracks." 

"  Yes,  it  ought  to  pretty  well  cover  up  the  tracks," 
he  admitted  with  a  flash  of  antagonism  which  he  was  not 
quite  able  to  suppress. 


CHAPTER   TWELVE 

TORRIE  THROSSEL'S  marriage  to  Owen  Stor- 
row  took  place  one  rainy  day  early  in  October. 
It  took  place  under  conditions  which  were  any 
thing  but  exhilarating,  proving  of  a  nature  that  tended 
to  persuade  the  groom  that  Torrie's  original  attitude  to 
wards  such  ceremonies  was  not  altogether  an  absurd  one. 
From  those  moments  which  were  to  bring  a  wife  to  his 
arms  he  was  able  to  extract  scant  suggestion  of  a  goddess 
stepping  from  a  cloud,   scant  semblance  to  a  rare  and 
beautiful  rite  being  beautifully  consummated. 

Over  it  all,  in  the  first  place,  was  an  inalienable  taint 
of  the  surreptitious.  It  carried  with  it,  in  fact,  the  stub 
born  and  disturbing  sense  of  a  smuggling  expedition 
somewhat  hastily  planned  and  somewhat  lugubriously 
carried  out.  Storrow,  as  he  stared  out  the  rain-streaked 
window  of  his  day-coach  on  a  side-line  in  New  Jersey, 
with  Torrie  veiled  and  apprehensive-eyed  at  his  elbow, 
found  it  hard  to  accept  the  expedition  as  something  not 
in  defiance  of  the  law  but  in  accord  with  it.  They  had 
taken  advantage  of  her  more  or  less  tenuous  friendship 
with  a  friend  of  a  friend  of  a  justice  of  the  peace,  in  a 
remoter  town,  who  had  announced  his  willingness  to 
make  things  smooth  for  them,  though  this  involved  a  none 
too  inviting  train-trip,  a  tiresome  wait  at  a  junction- 
point,  a  stupidly  prolonged  tour  of  investigation  in  a 
dripping  and  odoriferous  "  cab,"  and  a  half  hour  of 
solemn  jocularity  and  dissimulated  high  tension  in  an  un 
speakably  disordered  and  stuffy  office  which  smelt  of 
mouldy  calf -skin  and  stale  tobacco  inextricably  blended. 

J53 


154  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

All  this  Torrie  endured  with  a  thoughtful-eyed  alert 
ness  through  which  the  sensitized  Storrow  probed  in  vain 
for  some  touch  of  reproof.  Her  face  was  whiter  than 
usual,  he  noticed,  when  he  slipped  the  ring  on  her  finger. 
This  same  finger,  he  even  found  to  his  surprise,  was  shak 
ing  a  little.  And  on  the  way  back  to  the  city,  in  a  day- 
coach  which  was  as  chilly  as  the  earlier  one  had  been  over 
heated,  the  same  momentary  pallor  overtook  her  as  she 
drew  the  ring  from  her  finger  and  tucked  it  away  in  one 
corner  of  her  leather  hand-bag. 

"  You  shouldn't  do  that." 

"Why  not?"  she  asked. 

"  They  say  it's  bad  luck,"  he  reminded  her. 

"  I'm  yours,  Honey,  whether  it's  on  or  off,"  she  said 
as  she  crowded  up  closer  to  him.  That  movement  was 
apparently  undertaken  for  the  sake  of  warmth,  both  of 
the  body  and  mind.  He  stared  down  at  her,  oppressed 
by  the  wintriness  of  her  smile.  Then  a  surge  of  pity 
went  through  him,  pity  for  her  at  his  sheer  incompetence 
to  engineer  any  ray  of  splendour  into  a  situation  from 
which  women  instinctively  expected  splendour.  He  took 
possession  of  her  hand,  hungrily,  and  held  it  close  in  his, 
under  a  fold  of  his  raincoat,  wondering  how,  in  the  days 
to  come,  he  could  compensate  her  for  that  loss.  He  re 
membered  that  she  had  even  forbidden  him  to  send 
flowers  to  her  room  and  had  shrunk  from  his  suggestion 
of  a  dinner  in  state  at  one  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  hotels. 
They  could  have  all  that,  she  contended,  later  on.  And 
in  the  meantime  she  had  him. 

Once  home  again,  however,  Torrie  found  a  note  under 
her  door,  a  masculine  scrawl  of  a  note  from  Krassler 
reminding  her  that  her  two  stage  gowns  had  to  be  decided 
on  that  afternoon  and  that  Madame  Kavoni  could  not  be 
kept  later  than  five.  This  meant  a  hurried  call  for  a 
taxi,  a  hurried  kiss  and  hug  in  the  half -lighted  hallway, 
and  an  incredibly  desolate  remainder  of  the  day  for  the 
mood-swept  Storrow. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  155 

At  seven  a  messenger-boy  appeared  with  a  note  from 
Torrie  explaining  that  she  could  not  get  back  for  dinner 
as  an  evening  rehearsal  had  been  ordered.  It  might  last 
to  any  old  hour  in  the  morning,  she  went  on  to  say,  and 
in  the  meantime  she  would  snatch  a  bite  on  the  wing  and 
think  of  him  every  moment  until  they  could  be  together 
again. 

This  message  left  Storrow  in  a  none  too  happy  frame 
of  mind.  Already,  he  saw,  there  were  forces  gnawing 
at  the  bands  with  which  he  had  tried  to  tie  Torrie  the 
closer  to  him,  forces  which  left  even  marriage  altogether 
in  the  background.  And  yet,  he  kept  telling  himself,  the 
situation  had  arisen  through  no  fault  of  his  wife's.  She, 
in  all  likelihood,  was  quite  as  miserable  over  it  as  her 
husband,  if  the  realization  that  she  was  the  possessor  of 
a  husband  had  yet  crept  home  to  her. 

Still  swayed  by  a  restlessness  which  seemed  beyond  his 
control,  he  went  out  to  dinner.  He  ate  alone,  oppressed 
for  the  first  time  since  his  advent  to  the  city  by  a  con 
sciousness  of  his  isolation.  Then  he  just  as  moodily 
wandered  along  Forty-Second  Street  to  Broadway  and 
its  hectoring  sky-signs,  pausing  with  the  crowd  before 
the  shuttling  street-traffic  of  Times  Square.  With  eyes 
that  were  idle  and  not  altogether  free  of  antagonism,  he 
edged  back  against  the  curb  to  make  way  for  a  limousine 
which  admitted  of  no  argument  as  it  imperiously  cut  the 
corner.  Then  his  diffused  resentment  focussed  into  a 
sudden  startled  stare,  for  in  that  limousine  he  clearly 
caught  sight  of  Torrie  and  Herman  Krassler. 

He  watched  the  car  sweep  down  Seventh  Avenue.  His 
first  quick  flush  of  resentment  gave  way  to  a  feeling  of 
humiliation  which  he  found  it  hard  to  define  and  equally 
hard  to  master.  What  impressed  him  most  was  the 
frank  enjoyment  on  Krassler's  face.  And  the  more  he 
thought  of  this  the  more  a  slowly  enlarging  suspicion 
grew  up  in  his  mind.  He  dreaded  to  formulate  that  sus- 


156  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

picion.  But  the  wings  of  it  carried  him  back  to  an  earlier 
scene  in  The  Alwyn  Arms. 

He  was  half  way  home,  in  fact,  before  he  even  digni 
fied  his  imworded  fears  by  making  a  movement  to  end 
them,  or  if  the  worst  came  to  the  worst,  to  confirm 
them.  Turning  in  at  a  pay-station,  he  called  up  the 
theatre  where  he  knew  Krassler's  company  usually  re 
hearsed,  and  making  his  inquiry  as  curt  and  casual  as 
he  was  able,  asked  if  a  rehearsal  of  The  Seventh 
Wave  was  taking  place  there  tonight.  This  theatre,  it 
was  promptly  explained  to  him  over  the  wire,  was  hous 
ing  a  company  of  its  own,  with  an  evening  performance 
under  way.  The  Seventh  Wave  people  could  be  found 
rehearsing  down  at  Acorn  Hall,  somewhere  on  lower 
Seventh  Avenue. 

Storrow,  as  he  continued  his  way  homeward,  found 
clearing  skies  above  him.  He  had  been  foolish,  of 
course.  There  was  nothing  tragic  in  the  fact  that  Kras- 
sler  had  given  Torrie  a  lift  in  his  car.  That  was  an  ac 
cident,  and  nothing  more,  an  unconsidered  emergency 
cropping  up  in  the  course  of  the  day's  work.  It  was  his 
own  fool's  readiness  to  resentment  that  could  be  called 
the  tragic  part  of  the  thing. 

But,  alone  in  his  studio  that  night,  Storrow  gave  a 
great  deal  of  thought  to  the  situation  immediately  con 
fronting  him.  He  also  arrived  at  a  number  of  decisions. 
One  of  them  was  that  Torrie  would  have  to  give  up  Vib- 
bard's  studio.  He  had  no  intention  of  seeing  his  wife 
dependent  on  an  outsider  for  even  a  temporary  place  of 
abode.  And  later  on,  he  also  decided,  he  would  see  to 
it  that  Torrie  gave  up  the  stage.  He  would  settle  down 
and  work  hard,  Storrow  told  himself,  and  that  would 
make  smaller  any  sacrifices  which  Torrie  might  have  to 
face.  For,  as  she  had  said,  the  only  thing  that  really 
counted  was  whether  they  loved  each  other  or  not.  That 
was  the  vital  thing,  and  of  that,  thank  Heaven,  he  nursed 
no  shadow  of  doubt. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  157 

He  reached  out,  absently,  and  picked  up  from  his  table 
the  silver  backed  hair-brush  which  Torrie,  with  her  light- 
hearted  contempt  for  orderliness,  had  left  between  his 
books.  He  turned  it  over  and  over  in  his  hands.  As 
he  held  the  brush  closer  to  his  face  he  caught  from  it 
the  heavy  capillary  odour  that  seemed  suddenly  able  to 
visualize  her  before  him.  It  prompted  him  to  look  at 
his  watch,  again  and  still  again,  wondering  when  Torrie 
would  get  back. 

It  was  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  Torrie  re 
turned.  She  came  in  quietly,  tired  but  triumphant,  with 
her  habitual  little  coo  of  delight  as  she  discovered  that 
Storrow  had  waited  up  for  her.  But  she  did  not  run 
to  him  with  her  equally  habitual  wing-flutter  of  the 
arms,  as  he  had  half-expected  her  to  do.  She  stood 
arrested  and  a  little  chilled  by  the  solemnity  on  his 
face. 

"  It's  an  awful  hour,  isn't  it?  "  she  said  as  she  unspeared 
her  hat  and  tossed  it  to  one  side.  "  I  thought  they  were 
never  going  to  get  through  the  thing." 

"How  did  you  get  home?''  asked  Storrow,  without 
looking  at  her. 

"  In  a  yellow  taxi  with  Mattie  Crowder,"  explained 
Torrie  as  she  looked  about  for  a  cigarette.  "  Krassler 
said  he'd  give  me  a  lift  this  far,  but  I  preferred  the  taxi." 

"And  were  you  able  to  snatch  a  bite  on  the  wing?  " 
he  next  inquired,  with  an  obliquity  of  which  he  was 
secretly  ashamed.  She  stopped  short  in  the  act  of  light 
ing  her  cigarette,  studying  her  husband  with  impersonal 
yet  meditative  eyes.  Then  she  laughed  a  little. 

"  It  was  more  than  a  bite,  Owen,  after  all.  That  man 
made  me  eat  with  him.  He  said  it  was  his  only  chance 
to  go  over  a  number  of  points  he  wanted  to  make  plain 
to  me.  There  were  two  or  three  of  the  big  men  there 
to  look  us  over,  and  Krassler  didn't  want  me  to  fall  down 
at  what  was  almost  my  first  public  performance." 

Storrow  found  the  last  of  the  fog,  the  thin  but  chilling 


158  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

fog  which  had  kept  returning  to  his  valley  of  moodiness, 
whisked  away  into  the  upper  airs  of  reasonableness. 

"And  how  did  you  get  along?"  he  asked  with  a 
relenting  smile  of  interest.  Torrie  sat  for  a  moment 
thinking  over  this  question. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  she  finally  replied.  "  I  tried 
hard  enough,  but  it's  all  so  new  to  me.  I  got  tired  in 
the  last  act  and  couldn't  make  my  voice  carry  the  way  I 
wanted  to.  And  the  whole  piece  didn't  go  the  way 
Krassler  had  expected." 

Storrow,  staring  at  her  face,  realized  that  for  all  her 
air  of  suppressed  excitement  she  was  utterly  tired  out. 

"Poor  kid!"  he  murmured  as  he  reached  for  her 
hand.  She  seemed  to  have  been  awaiting  some  such 
signal  or  movement  from  him,  for  the  tension  went  out 
of  her  body  and  the  blankness  out  of  her  eyes.  She  did 
not  get  up  from  her  chair,  but  pushed  it  on  its  heavy 
castors  so  that  it  stood  close  beside  his.  From  this  posi 
tion  she  could  lean  across  the  padded  chair-arm  against 
his  shoulder. 

"  Be  good  to  me!  "  she  pleaded.  The  note  of  wistful- 
ness  in  her  voice  reminded  him  that  she  had  been  placed 
there  at  his  side  for  protection,  for  sustainment.  They 
were  both,  apparently,  very  much  alone  in  the  world,  lost 
in  the  heart  of  a  turbid  and  preoccupied  city.  They  were 
also,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  without  antecedents, 
without  relatives  and  family  interests  to  consider.  Such 
interests,  on  such  a  day,  would  have  loomed  large  on  the 
horizon,  would  have  made  themselves  momentous  in  that 
furtive  suburban  ceremony  which  already  seemed  some 
thing  faded  and  far-away.  And  this  prompted  Storrow 
to  wonder  if  their  own  speedy  return  to  the  earlier  state 
of  things,  leaving  so  little  to  show  for  their  hurried 
journey  into  New  Jersey,  was  the  reason  that  their  mar 
riage  was  already  appearing  so  remote  and  so  phantasmal. 

Torrie  was  still  too  wide  awake  to  think  of  sleeping. 
So  they  made  Swiss  cheese  sandwiches  and  drank  bottled 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  159 

beer  together.  Storrow  felt,  at  first,  that  Tome's 
facetiousness  was  a  trifle  forced.  But  this  he  finally 
put  down  to  over-strained  nerves.  She  seemed  so 
childishly  happy  to  be  with  him  again  that  he  decided  to 
postpone  all  his  carefully  thought  out  arguments  and 
ultimatums  until  a  time  more  fitting.  Yet  it  struck  him 
as  odd  that  she  said  nothing  about  their  marriage,  that 
it  seemed  so  little  in  her  mind.  Her  only  reference  to  it, 
in  fact,  was  as  oblique  as  it  was  unpremeditated. 

"  No  one  can  stop  me  from  doing  that  now,"  she  had 
proclaimed  as  she  held  his  head  pressed  against  her  bosom 
and  left  the  taste  of  beer  and  cheese  on  his  upturned 
mouth.  Whereupon  she  lapsed  into  silence,  with  a  small 
frown  of  trouble  on  her  half-shadowed  face. 

"  Then  do  it  again,"  he  said  to  banish  the  frown.  And 
she  repeated  the  act  more  abundantly  than  before. 

"  Oh,  Lover,  Lover!  "  she  murmured,  contentedly,  like 
a  note  of  music  struck  from  drowsy  strings. 

It  was  almost  noon,  the  next  day,  when  Storrow  wak 
ened.  It  took  some  time  to  shake  off  the  sense  of  guilt 
aroused  by  hours  so  unseemly  for  a  worker,  since  there 
after  he  intended  to  be  a  worker.  The  fact  that  Torrie 
was  already  one  of  that  guild  served  as  a  goad  to  his  rest 
less  spirit,  so  that  in  his  moments  of  abstraction  his  mind 
harped  back  to  the  laying  out  of  his  novel,  fretting  about 
it  as  a  farm  collie  frets  about  a  woodchuck  hole.  Torrie, 
he  realized  for  the  first  time,  would  always  want  to  sleep 
late.  This,  he  also  realized,  meant  that  his  mornings 
would  be  lost,  unless  he  had  a  corner  of  his  own  to  work 
in.  And  above  all  things  he  wanted  to  get  his  teeth  set 
on  the  bone  of  invention  while  the  appetite  to  create  was 
strong  within  him  and  the  demands  to  justify  existence 
were  rigorous  about  him. 

Then  he  no  longer  thought  about  himself.  Instead, 
he  sat  up  in  bed  and  stared  down  at  the  still  sleeping 
woman  beside  him.  It  could  always  hold  his  attention, 
that  sleeping  face,  touched  with  a  mystery  that  was  sec- 


160  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

ond  only  to  the  mystery  of  death.  And  she  slept  as 
peacefully  and  abandonedly  as  a  child.  Her  lips,  slightly 
parted,  were  red  and  viscid,  the  foreshortened  lines  curv 
ing  into  what  looked  like  a  pout  of  protesting  childish 
ness.  He  could  see  the  steady  pulse-beat  in  the  hollow 
of  the  white  neck  and  the  ramified  blue  veining  in  the 
dusky  eyelids  where  the  faint  fan-like  tracery  of  the 
laughter-lines  gave  a  countering  touch  of  maturity  to 
the  face.  Yet  the  entire  attitude  of  the  relaxed  body 
impressed  him  as  one  of  trust,  of  trust  in  him,  of  trust  in 
some  sterner  force  to  which  it  had  forlornly  surrendered. 
It  was,  after  all,  he  himself  who  was  the  guardian  of  that 
softly  rising  and  subsiding  machinery  of  life.  And  lean 
ing  closer,  he  brooded  over  it  with  an  impulse  of  tender 
ness  which  he  could  not  articulate.  She  was  something 
more,  he  tried  to  tell  himself,  than  a  wave  washed  up  the 
shore  of  his  desire.  She  was,  fundamentally  and 
primordially,  his  mate,  his  life  partner.  And  there  was 
no  trace  of  carnality  in  the  kiss,  light  as  a  feather-touch, 
with  which  he  brushed  the  upturned  point  of  her  bare 
shoulder.  She  stirred  and  turned  a  little,  with  an  in 
drawn  breath  that  was  almost  a  sigh,  and  then  lapsed  back 
into  unbroken  slumber.  Storrow,  holding  his  breath, 
moved  slowly  and  cautiously  away  and  finally  slipped  out 
of  bed,  guarding  each  movement  to  make  sure  that  he 
was  not  awakening  her.  Later,  disturbed  by  the  chilli 
ness  of  the  room  from  the  opened  window,  he  tiptoed  to 
the  bedside  and  softly  drew  the  tumbled  coverings  up 
about  her  shoulders.  Then  he  as  quietly  tiptoed  away 
again. 

Storrow,  when  Torrie  wakened,  was  hard  at  work,  with 
an  empty  coffee-cup  beside  him  and  an  ever-increasing 
array  of  written  sheets  before  him.  The  determination 
to  create,  as  he  sounded  the  possibilities  of  his  long- 
nursed  romance  of  the  North-land,  merged  into  a  fever 
to  create.  But  it  was  stiff  labour,  that  manipulation  of 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  161 

a  new  medium,  and  involved  a  concentration  tending  to 
leave  him  unconscious  of  time  and  place.  Torrie,  with 
eyes  still  heavy  from  sleep,  stared  at  him  for  a  puzzled 
moment  or  two,  murmured :  "  You  old  ink-coolie !  " 
and  slipped  away  for  her  bath.  Storrow,  all  the  while, 
was  far  off  in  the  sub-Arctics,  unconscious  of  those 
ablutionary  sounds  which  had  once  so  held  his  attention, 
oblivious  to  Torrie's  return  in  her  heelless  Turkish  slip 
pers  and  loose-fitting  bath-robe.  It  was  actual  hunger 
more  than  her  movements  about  the  room  that  finally 
brought  him  out  of  his  trance. 

They  prepared  their  meal  together,  in  Storrow's 
kitchenette  which  camp-life  had  taught  him  to  keep  or 
derly.  Every  woodsman,  he  explained  to  Torrie  as  he 
presided  over  skillet  and  coffee-pot  with  a  quiet  dexterity 
which  startled  her,  had  to  learn  to  cook.  There  were 
no  restaurants  and  delicatessen-shops  in  the  Barren 
Grounds.  Torrie,  girdling  up  her  loose  robe  until  the 
white  ankles  showed  above  the  Turkish  slippers,  brought 
the  matutinal  newspaper  and  milk  and  rolls  from  the 
studio  door,  and  went  about  laying  the  table  for  two, 
crooning  as  she  worked. 

They  ate  side  by  side,  with  Torrie's  arm  across  the 
back  of  her  husband's  chair.  They  ate,  in  fact,  with  the 
honest  appetites  of  the  healthy  young  animals  they  were, 
and  when  they  had  finished  they  sat  with  their  slippered 
feet  up  on  the  radiator-top  and  the  grey  coils  of  cigarette- 
smoke  slowly  ascending  to  the  skylight. 

"  It's  a  great  life  if  you  don't  weaken,"  contentedly 
remarked  Torrie  with  her  head  against  Storrow's  shoul 
der,  repeating  a  Broadway  catch-line  of  the  day. 

"  What'll  make  us  weaken  ?  "  demanded  Storrow,  not 
understanding  the  allusion. 

That  question,  however,  remained  unanswered.  For 
almost  as  it  was  uttered  the  studio  door  opened  and  a 
pert  young  figure  in  grey  came  to  a  sudden  standstill. 


162  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  Hully  gee!  "  she  said  aloud  as  she  surveyed  the  two 
figures  on  the  far  side  of  the  room.  "  Here's  where  I 
beat  it!  " 

"  Pannie,"  cried  Torrie  sharply,  as  the  intruder  started 
to  back  out  through  the  still  open  door.  And  Pannie, 
with  a  stare  of  comprehension  still  on  her  sophisticated 
young  face,  came  to  a  stop. 

The  three  stood  there,  in  a  moment  of  constrained 
silence  across  which  unspoken  questions  and  retorts 
seemed  to  flash  like  heat-lightning. 

"  Tell  her,"  Torrie  suddenly  commanded  Storrow. 
And  Storrow  told  her,  inwardly  irritated  at  the  discov 
ery  that  his  words  seemed  more  a  confession  than  an  an 
nouncement. 

'  You  nuts !  You  two  nuts !  "  cried  Pannie,  in  the 
language  of  her  world.  "  But  if  you've  didded  it,  I 
s'pose  I've  gotta  kiss  you  both !  "  And  this  Pannie  pro 
ceeded  to  do,  considerably  to  Storrow's  discomfort,  for 
it  was  a  brazen  and  full-blooded  smack  which  she  planted 
on  his  lips.  This,  indeed,  she  threatened  to  repeat,  but 
Torrie,  with  a  pretence  at  indignation,  tore  her  away. 

'  That  belongs  to  me,"  she  said  with  her  habitual  and 
throaty  little  coo  of  happiness,  as  she  walled  Storrow's 
body  off  with  her  outstretched  arms. 


CHAPTER   THIRTEEN 

DURING  the  week  that  ensued  the  new  inter 
preter  of  the  North-land  found  time  a-plenty 
to  give  to  his  work.  Torrie  was  surprisingly 
little  at  home.  Her  day,  and  sometimes  half  her  night, 
seemed  filled  with  rehearsals  and  fittings  and  photogra 
phers  and  ever-revised  preparations  for  a  two-week  try- 
one  of  The  Seventh  Wave  "  on  the  road."  Yet  even  the 
preoccupied  Storrow  was  able  to  garner  a  hint  or  two  that 
things  were  not  going  as  smoothly  with  the  new  produc 
tion  as  they  should. 

Nor  did  he  find  the  approach  to  his  own  new  venture 
altogether  plain  sailing.  He  was  doubly  anxious  to  es 
cape  failure,  not  only  because  it  was  the  first  step  in  a 
new  field,  but  also  because  it  seemed  success  alone  that 
could  now  justify  existence  for  him.  He  was  not  sorry, 
accordingly,  when  at  the  tail  end  of  a  day  of  hard  work 
Chester  Hardy  dropped  in  to  see  how  he  was  getting 
along. 

"  That's  the  only  answer  to  your  question,"  retorted 
Storrow,  pointing  none  too  hopefully  at  the  pile  of  manu 
script  that  lay  before  him,  confronted  by  that  bareness  of 
the  horizon  which  comes  after  supreme  endeavour. 

Hardy,  at  a  nod  from  the  other,  took  up  the  scattered 
sheets  and  tamped  their  edges  methodically  together. 

"  In  the  first  place,"  he  said,  "  get  a  typewriter.  Script 
is  too  hard  to  read  and  too  slow  to  write,  for  these  busy 
times."  Then  he  sat  silent,  with  his  keen  and  slightly 
faded  eye  rowelling  over  line  after  line.  Storrow  sat 
watching  him,  more  anxious  than  he  would  have  been 

163 


164  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

willing  to  admit.  For  he  knew  that  whatever  happened, 
Hardy  would  tell  him  the  truth.  But  for  a  half-hour 
without  movement  or  gesture  Hardy  continued  to  pore 
over  the  pages.  And  no  word  of  approval  escaped  him 
as  he  put  them  down. 

"  In  the  second  place,"  he  resumed  as  though  he  had 
been  speaking  but  a  moment  before,  "  while  you've  ex 
plained  the  presence  of  your  city  girl  in  the  wilderness 
satisfactorily  enough,  why  hang  crepe  on  the  front  door 
by  killing  off  her  father  in  your  very  first  chapter?  He 
isn't  essential  to  your  story,  either  dead  or  alive,  and  in 
this  work  you've  got  to  keep  down  to  essentials.  Then 
when  your  man  pulls  the  girl  out  of  the  rapids,  after  the 
entire  outfit  is  wrecked,  have  her  as  naked,  or  as  next  to 
naked,  as  he  is  himself,  the  way  you  first  said  you  were 
going  to  do  it." 

"  But  as  I  worked  it  out  it  seemed  sure  to  shock  peo 
ple's  sensibilities,"  explained  Storrow. 

"  Don't  let  cowardice  edge  you  away  from  your 
theme,"  bruskly  persisted  the  older  man.  "If  what 
[you've  got  seems  like  the  truth,  say  it,  and  let  the  sensi 
bilities  take  care  of  themselves.  You  intend  to  show  your 
two  people  reverting  suddenly  to  Adam  and  Eve  condi 
tions.  And  if  you  keep  clothes  on  'em  you  don't  get  'em 
back  to  the  Adam  and  Eve  age  at  all.  Strip  'em,  my  boy, 
strip  'em  bare  to  the  bone,  and  let  'em  learn  to  take  care 
of  their  nakedness  of  soul  in  the  same  way  they're  taking 
care  of  their  nakedness  of  body.  That's  your  theme,  and 
that's  what'll  carry  you  through." 

"  But  will  it  carry  me  through?  "  asked  Storrow,  try 
ing  to  keep  the  question  down  to  the  plane  of  the  common 
place. 

Hardy  knew  the  hope  that  lay  ambuscaded  in  that 
seemingly  casual  query.  He  knew  also  the  difficulties 
that  beset  the  way  of  the  artist  not  yet  accustomed  to  the 
edged  tools  of  creation.  And  he  was  sincere  enough  to 
be  honest. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  165 

"  I  can't  answer  that  until  you've  rounded  out  your 
structure  a  little  more.  But  you've  got  a  basic  idea  that 
is  arresting,  that  is  arresting  even  to  me  —  and  I  can 
assure  you  I'm  a  sad-eyed  old  dog  at  this  business  of 
inspecting  stories.  Then  you've  got  a  new  field,  and 
ground  that  you  know.  So  take  advantage  of  that.  Be 
definite.  Be  graphic  and  concrete.  Don't  be  afraid  to 
describe  exactly  how  your  master  of  woodcraft  makes 
that  wilderness  soap  for  the  lady.  And  tell  exactly  how 
they  cured  and  sewed  together  that  rabbit-skin  suit  of 
hers,  and  make  it  quite  plain  how  they  prepared  the  fish 
bone  needles  and  the  cedar-root  thread.  You  have  him 
keep  her  warm,  that  first  night  after  the  rescue,  by  bury 
ing  her  in  the  down  from  bull-rushes.  I'm  not  naturalist 
enough  to  know  whether  this  could  be  done  or  not,  but 
it  sounds  amazingly  poetic.  I'm  inclined  to  think,  on 
the  whole,  that  it  would  take  an  incredible  number  of 
bull-rush  heads  to  inter  the  lady." 

"  You're  wrong,"  explained  Storrow,  now  on  ground 
that  he  was  sure  of.  "  There  are  coulees  in  the  country 
where  I'm  laying  this  action  carpeted  with  bull-rushes. 
I've  seen  them  thick  enough  to  fill  a  hay-rack  with  down 
in  an  hour's  work.  They're  so  plentiful  that  the  Indians 
dry  and  grind  the  bulbs  for  a  kind  of  flour.  Tomorrow, 
in  fact,  I  intend  to  have  my  man  explain  the  process  to 
his  mate." 

"Good!"  proclaimed  Hardy.  "Give  'em  all  of  that 
stuff  you  can  crowd  in,  all  the  wild-life  and  wood-craft 
material  you've  got  to  use.  For  that's  what'll  carry  you 
over.  And  that's  not  only  your  individual  note,  your 
distinctive  note,  in  this  case,  but  it's  the  stuff  that  city 
people  crave." 

When  Hardy  took  his  departure,  leaving  Storrow  like 
a  cub-lion  with  his  first  taste  of  blood,  he  went  with  a 
renewed  and  more  complicated  interest  in  the  young 
Canadian  who  was  showing  more  changes  than  the  mere 
loss  of  the  woodland  tan.  Hardy,  in  prospecting  the 


166  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

casual  lodes  of  curiosity,  had  unearthed  what  promised 
to  prove  the  more  precious  metal  of  efficiency.  There 
was  a  chance,  if  he  kept  his  head,  that  the  stranger  from 
the  North  might  eventually  win  out.  And  in  that  final 
winning  out,  if  it  was  to  be  brought  about,  Hardy  had  a 
sincere  and  far  from  selfish  wish  to  be  a  factor. 

Hardy  returned,  before  the  end  of  the  week,  with  a 
smile  of  approval  for  both  the  newly  installed  typewriter 
and  the  newly  completed  chapters.  There  were,  of 
course,  criticisms  to  be  proffered  and  changes  to  be 
suggested  and  timely  hints  to  be  thrown  out.  The 
younger  author,  in  fact,  was  governed  by  these  much  more 
than  he  imagined.  He  had  reached  the  stage,  by  this 
time,  where  he  felt  that  he  could  stand  alone.  So  there 
was  much  talk  and  argument  and  clash  of  theory  against 
theory,  but  it  ended,  as  a  rule,  in  Storrow's  tacit  submis 
sion  to  the  older  man's  will. 

"  The  first  rule  of  art,"  that  older  man  had  averred, 
"  is  to  escape  dulness."  At  another  time  he  had  de 
clared  :  "  It's  only  work,  remember,  that  can  efface  the 
footsteps  of  work.'*  And  as  though  to  confirm  this  at 
titude  he  carried  away  bodily  all  of  Storrow's  manu 
script  that  could  be  spared,  "  to  chew  over  at  his  leisure," 
as  he  expressed  it. 

"  I  want  you  to  make  good  on  this,  young  man,"  he 
went  on  to  explain,  "  for  this  United  States  of  ours, 
you'll  find,  has  mighty  small  sympathy  with  failure,  no 
matter  how  romantic  the  attendant  circumstances  may 
be." 

Storrow,  under  this  kindly  lash  of  encouragement, 
worked  harder  than  ever.  Even  Torrie  acquired  a  quali 
fied  respect  for  his  preoccupation  and  fell  to  complaining 
of  his  absentmindedness. 

"  Hello,  old  book-worm !  "  was  her  greeting  as  she 
came  into  his  studio  one  morning  to  dry  her  hair  over  his 
radiator.  She  was  in  neglige, —  that,  he  began  to  see, 
was  a  habit  which  women  of  the  stage  found  imposed 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  167 

upon  them  —  and  as  she  sat  leaning  forward  with  her 
still  damp  hair  cascading  down  over  the  metal  of  the 
warm  radiator  he  stared  absently  at  the  accidental  gleam 
of  the  bare  white  shoulder  in  the  strong  side  light.  The 
sight  of  that  smooth  and  milky  texture  always  stirred  in 
him  a  vague  longing  to  return  to  his  modelling. 

"  Torrie,"  he  abstractedly  inquired,  "  just  how'd  you 
ever  come  to  have  that  wonderful  skin?  " 

She  lifted  a  corner  of  the  dusky  mane  shadowing  her 
face  and  looked  at  him.  Then,  having  made  sure  there 
was  no  mockery  in  his  eyes,  she  massaged  a  satiny  shoul 
der  with  meditative  finger-tips. 

"  I  was  born  with  it,  Honey-Bun,"  she  explained,  "  the 
same  as  you  were  born  with  those  wide  shoulders  of 
yours.  Mother  used  to  have  exactly  the  same  skin. 
Even  up  to  the  week  she  died  she  was  as  pink  and  white 
as  a  baby." 

He  remembered,  as  he  went  back  to  his  work,  that  he 
knew  startlingly  little  of  her  antecedents,  of  her  own 
earlier  life.  Human  beings,  after  all,  were  enigmas  to 
other  human  beings.  And  with  that  half-formulated 
deduction  he  re-entered  the  rustling  forest  of  his  imagina 
tion  and  rounded  up  the  scattered  voices  of  creation. 

So  immersed  was  he  in  his  work  that  when  a  few 
minutes  later  a  knock  sounded  on  his  door  he  called  out  an 
abstracted  "  Come  in."  He  looked  up  to  see  Hardy  with 
a  bundle  of  manuscript  on  his  threshold  and  Torrie  with 
a  cry  of  protest  diving  for  the  communicating-door. 

Hardy  beheld  that  vanishing  white-shouldered  figure, 
imperious  in  line  as  the  Flying  Victory,  and  somewhere 
deep  in  his  unparticipating  eyes  Storrow  thought  he  de 
tected  a  look  that  savoured  of  contempt.  He  resented 
that  look,  and  found  his  resentment  double-edged  at  the 
thought  that  it  was  not  definite  enough  to  combat.  Yet 
at  the  same  time  a  vague  dread  of  finding  it,  or  what  it 
must  have  stood  for,  translated  into  actual  and  irretriev 
able  words  prompted  him  to  speak. 


168  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  We  were  married  last  week,  Torrie  Throssel  and 
I!" 

He  saw  Hardy  wheel  about  as  though  he  had  been 
shot. 

"  Good  God ! "  gasped  the  man  holding  the  manu 
script  under  his  arm,  with  a  foolish  look  of  vacuity  on 
his  face.  The  next  moment,  however,  he  seemed  once 
more  master  of  himself,  excepting  only  a  slow  flush  of 
embarrassment  which  stained  the  lean  and  slightly  lined 
cheek  as  Storrow  stood  in  front  of  him,  challenging  his 
gaze  by  one  equally  deliberate. 

"  That  seems  to  startle  you,"  parried  the  younger  man, 
with  a  note  of  harshness  in  his  voice. 

"  Naturally,"  said  the  other,  willing  to  give  ground 
until  his  shock  had  been  digested. 

"  Is  there  anything  so  dreadful  about  a  thing  like 
that?"  Storrow  found  himself  driven  into  demanding. 

Hardy,  by  this  time,  was  able  to  laugh  a  little.  But 
it  was  a  laugh  marked  by  neither  merriment  nor  ease. 

"  But  you  shouldn't  fling  a  thing  like  this  slap-bang 
into  the  face  of  your  friends/'  he  protested  with  a  pon 
derable  effort  at  lightness.  "  Marriage,  my  boy,  is  mo 
mentous.  It's  about  the  biggest  gun  in  the  battle  of  life. 
And  when  you  find  it  going  off  right  under  your  nose 
this  way,  it's  naturally  going  to  make  you  jump  a  little !  " 

Storrow,  grim  of  lip,  nursed  no  intention  of  making 
the  situation  any  easier  for  his  unhappy  guest. 

"You've  known  Torrie  for  some  time?"  he  half  in 
quired  and  half  suggested. 

Guarded  as  Hardy  stood,  he  could  not  keep  a  barricaded 
look  from  showing  in  his  eyes. 

"  Yes ;  I've  known  her.  But  never,  naturally,  as  you 
must  know  her." 

"  Do  you  like  her  or  dislike  her?  " 

This  inquisitorial  proceeding,  however,  was  no  longer 
palatable  to  the  cool-headed  man  of  letters.  He  laughed 
openly  this  time. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  169 

"  Since  you  do,"  he  acknowledged,  "  it's  surely  my  duty 
to  fall  in  line  with  the  others." 

"  The  others  —  what  others  ?  "  Storrow  demanded 
with  unexpected  sharpness. 

"  Torrie,  I  think,  has  many  friends,"  patiently  ex 
plained  Hardy  as  he  put  the  bundle  of  manuscript  down 
on  the  table  beside  him.  The  movement  was  plainly  a 
dismissive  one.  And  the  quietness  of  the  older  man  had 
already  begun  to  awaken  in  Storrow  a  suspicion  that  he 
himself  had  been  ridiculous,  that  he  might  be  straining 
the  bonds  of  friendship  beyond  reason.  Yet  along  the 
ramparts  of  his  suspicion  paced  a  ghostlike  and  all  too 
familiar  thought.  If  Torrie  was  beautiful  to  him,  she 
must  have  appeared  beautiful  to  others.  And  always 
there  would  be  that  undefined  uncertainty  of  the  past, 
that  equally  unformulated  threat  of  the  future,  since 
what  made  her  precious  also  made  her  perilous. 

He  sat  down,  heavily,  staring  at  the  waxed  floor  be 
tween  his  feet.  It  was  Hardy  who  spoke  first. 

"  Haven't  you  been  pegging  away  a  little  too  hard  at 
this?  "  he  asked  with  a  hand-movement  towards  the  man 
uscript. 

Storrow,  scenting  that  effort  at  extenuation,  laughed  a 
little. 

"  I  seem  to  be  developing  temperament,  don't  I  ?  "  he 
suggested,  not  without  a  touch  of  bitterness. 

"  And  not  developing  muscle,"  countered  the  older 
man.  "  A  man  of  your  bulk  has  got  to  use  his  body. 
You've  got  to  keep  hard  in  a  flat  as  well  as  in  the  forest. 
And  I  think  I'll  lead  you  around  to  the  Racquet  Club  gym 
where  you  can  work  the  acid  out  of  your  system  and 
freshen  up  with  a  plunge  every  afternoon." 

"  I'm  not  quite  sure  where  the  acid  is,"  acknowledged 
Storrow. 

"  A  squash-court  will  pretty  soon  show  you,"  was  the 
other's  retort. 

"  Then  let's  leave  it  until  I  get  this  cleared  away  a 


170  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

little  more,"  requested  Storrow  with  a  nod  towards  his 
work-table. 

"  And  we'll  leave  our  talk  about  these  opening  chap 
ters,"  added  Hardy,  once  more  on  his  feet,  "  until  some 
other  morning  when  we  both  have  more  time." 

He  left  Storrow  oppressed  by  a  sense  of  reservation 
studiously  sustained  and  of  judgments  over-considerately 
withheld.  Yet  the  moment  the  door  had  closed  on  that 
departing  guest  the  inner  door  opened  and  Torrie  stood 
confronting  him. 

"  Well,  you've  spilt  the  beans,  haven't  you  ?  "  she  cried 
with  a  note  that  was  quite  new  to  Storrow.  It  was  the 
first  time  he  had  seen  anger  at  him  convulse  her  face.  It 
took  the  luminous  draperies  out  of  her  eyes,  leaving  them 
as  flat  and  bald  as  the  windows  of  an  empty  house.  It 
betrayed  a  tendency  to  leave  the  full-blooded  lips  more 
square  in  line,  giving  them  a  slight  appearance  of  loose 
ness. 

"  Spilt  the  beans?  "  he  repeated,  amazed  beyond  meas 
ure  by  the  unexpected  antagonism  in  her  eyes. 

"  Why  did  you  tell  that  man  we'd  been  married?  "  de 
manded  the  Medea  with  the  loosened  hair. 

"Didn't  you  tell  Pannie  Atwill?"  countered  her  still 
mystified  husband. 

"  Pannie  Atwill' s  a  friend  of  mine,"  was  the  quick  re 
tort. 

"  Well,  Chester  Hardy's  a  friend  of  mine,"  announced 
Storrow  with  an  ascending  note  of  challenge  in  his  voice. 

"  But  he's  no  friend  of  mine,"  declared  the  angry-eyed 
Torrie.  "  And  it  was  clearly  understood  between  us 
that  nothing  was  to  be  said  about  my  marriage." 

"  Are  you  ashamed  of  it?  "  asked  Storrow  with  acidu 
lated  coldness. 

"  I'm  ashamed  of  you,"  she  shot  back  at  him,  "  for  not 
respecting  my  wishes,  and  my  interests." 

"  I  wish  you'd  explain  just  what  interests  are  likely  to 
suffer." 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  171 

She  did  not  reply  to  that  taunt,  since  beneath  all  its 
quietness  of  tone  it  was  a  taunt.  She  was  too  intent  in 
following  her  own  unhappy  lanes  of  thought. 

"  You  might  as  well  have  put  it  in  the  Morning  Tele 
graph  as  pass  it  out  to  Chester  Hardy." 

"  I  don't  see  why  it  shouldn't  be  put  in  the  Morning 
Telegraph,  for  that  matter." 

"  If  it  is,"  she  flung  out,  "  it  ought  to  go  in  the  obituary 
column." 

"  Is  it  that  fatal?  "  he  flung  back. 

"  The  fatal  part  is  being  a  fool  and  not  knowing 
it." 

He  rose  from  his  chair  at  that,  flushing  up  to  the  fore 
head.  Yet  he  was  able  to  stand  and  study  her  with 
coldly  appraising  eyes.  He  noticed,  for  the  first  time, 
that  there  was  an  animal  like  heaviness  about  her  out- 
thrust  face  and  a  touch  of  coarseness  in  the  hair  of  In 
dian-like  straightness.  Yet  even  through  the  fog  of 
belligerency  that  drifted  and  hung  between  them  she 
struck  him  as  being  in  some  way  pathetic,  as  being  incon 
gruously  and  pitifully  in  need  of  succour,  as  being  alone 
in  empty  wastes  to  which  he  ought  to  reach  out  a  sustain 
ing  hand. 

"  Torrie,"  he  said,  trying  to  speak  calmly  but  not  quite 
succeeding  in  doing  so,  "  it  seems  to  me  we're  not  start 
ing  out  right." 

"  It  most  decidedly  does,"  she  promptly  agreed. 

"  There  are  certain  things  we've  got  to  face,"  he  went 
on  with  self-imposed  deliberateness,  "  and  we  may  as 
well  face  them  right  now." 

"  I  don't  think  I've  got  time  to  be  preached  at,"  she 
declared,  with  a  lip-curl  of  scorn.  She  seemed  suddenly 
and  bewilderingly  remote  from  him.  Yet  even  in  that 
moment  of  tension  he  wondered  if  women  who  led 
careers  of  their  own,  if  women  who  were  economically 
independent,  were  not  to  be  made  allowances  for  in  their 
pursuit  of  personal  liberty. 


172  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  It's  not  a  question  of  preaching.  It's  a  question  of 
decency." 

"  On  my  part,  Sir  Manfred  ? "  she  mockingly  de 
manded.  "  Or  on  yours?  " 

"  On  yours,"  he  said,  solemn  with  the  consciousness  of 
approaching  crisis.  "  I  want  you  to  give  up  that  Vibbard 
studio,  and  give  it  up  at  once." 

She  stood  for  a  moment  of  utter  silence,  as  though 
startled  by  the  direction  in  which  his  masterfulness  was 
expressing  itself.  Then  the  scorn  once  more  mounted  to 
her  angry  eyes. 

"  You've  certainly  picked  a  queen  of  a  time  to  drag  me 
into  your  cage!  "  she  called  out  with  a  new  shrillness  in 
her  voice. 

"  Do  you  regard  it  as  a  cage?  "  he  asked,  wincing  in 
spite  of  himself  at  a  coarseness  of  fibre  which  seemed 
capable  of  hurting  him  more  than  all  her  anger. 

"  It  will  be  if  I  go  into  it  under  any  such  circumstances 
as  these,"  she  recklessly  proclaimed. 

He  felt  like  a  stone-mason  with  his  skiest  scaffolding 
giving  way. 

"And  you  intend  to  stay  out  of  it?"  he  demanded, 
tingling  in  the  face  of  what  he  knew  to  be  an  ultimatum. 

"  I  intend  to  remain  a  human  being,"  she  hotly  retorted 
as  she  reached  for  the  door  behind  her,  "  with  the  pre 
rogatives  of  a  human  being."  With  that  she  stepped 
through  the  door  into  the  Vibbard  studio  and  swung  it 
thunderously  shut  behind  her. 

Storrow  stood  looking  after  her.  She  had  said  "  per- 
rogatives,"  he  inappositely  remembered.  And  that 
seemed  to  leave  the  thing  more  tragically  unjust  than  ever. 


CHAPTER    FOURTEEN 

IT  was  late  at  night  when  Storrow  returned  to  his 
studio  after  a  day  of  restless  wandering  about  the 
city  that   seemed   without  vistas   and  vision.     The 
dregs   of   his  trivially  momentous  quarrel   with  Torrie 
still  lay  sour  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart.     He  unlocked  his 
door,  tired  of  body  and  listless  in  spirit.     He  was  startled, 
on   stepping  into  the   studio,  to   find  his   reading  lamp 
switched  on.     He  was  still  further  startled  to  find  Torrie 
huddled  up  in  his  big  arm-chair  of  faded  green  velour. 

She  did  not  look  up  as  he  stood  before  her,  and  for  a 
moment,  as  he  studied  the  relaxed  figure  and  the  droop 
ing  head  with  its  tumbled  hair,  he  thought  that  she  had 
fallen  asleep.  Then  he  caught  the  sound  of  an  unmis 
takable  small  sob.  It  was  a  sound  that  bewildered  him 
at  the  same  time  that  it  devastated  him,  for  he  had  never 
learned  to  associate  Torrie  with  tears.  She  had  always 
seemed  to  him  too  vital  and  too  strong-willed  for  any 
such  surrender.  And  he  waited,  shocked  into  silence, 
wondering  as  to  the  cause  of  this  relapse.  The  wait  was 
a  long  one.  But  it  was  finally  broken  by  Torrie  herself. 

"  I've  been  an  awful  fool,  Owen,"  she  said  quickly, 
without  lifting  her  face.  But  the  note  of  contrition  in 
that  acknowledgment  was  too  much  for  him.  Before  it 
he  felt  his  ice  walls  of  injured  pride  melt  away.  She 
was  holding  out  one  hand  to  him,  blindly,  still  without  the 
courage,  apparently,  to  face  him,  still  with  her  head  bent 
low  over  the  faded  green  chair-arm.  So  he  dropped  on 
his  knee  beside  her,  catching  the  groping  hand  in  his,  with 
a  sudden  tightening  of  the  throat  and  an  equally  prompt 
relaxation  of  the  iron  hoops  about  his  heart. 

173 


174  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  Beloved,"  he  whispered,  amazed  at  the  miraculous 
debacle  of  the  emotions  which  lay  beyond  his  power  either 
to  withhold  or  control. 

She  reached  out  for  him  and  clung  to  him  with  little 
gasps,  half  hungrily,  half  triumphantly.  Her  nose,  red 
with  crying,  looked  pointed  and  pinched.  And  there  was 
a  meekness  in  her  demeanour  which  he  had  never  before 
seen  there. 

"  I  was  wrong,"  she  acknowledged,  studying  his  face 
with  her  bloodshot  eyes. 

"  We  were  both  wrong,"  he  largely  conceded,  with  a 
taste  of  brine  in  the  kisses  which  he  pressed  against  her 
wet  lashes. 

"  But  you  must  never  make  me  angry,  Honey,"  she 
said,  hiding  her  head  on  his  shoulder.  "  It  makes  me  say 
things  and  do  things  I'm  sorry  for  afterwards." 

He  found  at  the  core  of  that  acknowledgment  some 
thing  keenly  able  to  disturb  him. 

"  What  have  you  done?  "  he  asked,  trying  to  make  the 
question  a  casual  one. 

"  I've  done  what  you  wanted  me  to,"  she  told  him. 

"What?"  he  repeated. 

"  I've  given  up  that  room.     I've  given  up  everything." 

"Everything?"  he  echoed. 

"  All  I  want  is  you,"  she  maintained,  still  clinging  to 
him. 

"  But  what  have  you  given  up?  "  he  still  insisted,  ap 
prehensive  before  the  unknown. 

She  sat  back  in  the  wide-armed  chair,  mopping  the 
pointed  red  nose  with  her  tiny  damp  rag  of  a  handker 
chief.  Her  face  was  heavy,  with  its  last  look  of  youth 
vanished. 

"  I'm  not  going  on  with  that  stage  work,"  she  an 
nounced. 

This  was  more  than  he  had  looked  for,  more  than  he 
had  reason  to  expect. 

"  Do  you  mean  you've  quarrelled  with  Krassler? "  he 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  175 

heard  himself  demanding,  with  that  prospect  too  obvi 
ously  anything  but  a  disturbing  one. 

Torrie  shook  her  head. 

"  The  whole  thing's  been  taken  off.  The  Seiberts  said 
the  play  hadn't  a  chance  for  Broadway,  and  there  was  a 
dispute  about  bookings.  Then  the  backer  refused  to  put 
up  the  last  two  thousand  dollars  for  costumes  and  Kras- 
sler  said  that  was  the  straw  that  broke  the  camel's  back." 

Storrow's  relief,  at  this  acknowledgment,  was  overcast 
by  a  colouring  of  disappointment  in  the  discovery  that  the 
return  to  the  status  quo  had  not  been  as  entirely  a  vol 
untary  one  as  it  had  promised.  But  it  was  a  big  cloud, 
he  remembered,  which  hung  above  Torrie.  Yet  it  was 
clearly  one  with  a  silver  lining,  from  his  point  of  view. 
And  she  in  time  would  come  to  see  it  as  he  saw  it. 

"Do  you  feel  bad  about  this?"  he  finally  asked  her. 
Her  attitude,  as  she  sat  readjusting  the  hair-pins  in  her 
thick  crown  of  hair,  took  on  a  touch  of  the  judicial. 

"  I  did,  Honey,  when  I  couldn't  keep  from  thinking 
that  you  hated  me,"  she  said  as  she  stood  up  and  shook 
out  her  skirts.  "  And  that  play  may  have  been  rotten, 
as  Lee  Seibert  said  it  was.  But  I  wasn't  doing  my  part 
so  rottenly,  and  Seibert  knows  it !  " 

This  caused  Storrow  to  look  about  at  her.  It  was  a 
new  note  from  her,  that  naive  trumpeting  of  her  own 
power. 

"  You  mean  you've  a  feeling  it  might  lead  him  to  of 
fering  you  something  else  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  hesitated  for  a  moment.  Then  she  swung  about 
with  a  shrug  of  abandonment. 

"  I'm  not  thinking  about  it  at  all.  The  thing's  over. 
I've  got  to  take  my  medicine  without  kicking."  Then, 
arrested  by  his  suddenly  sobered  face,  she  added,  speak 
ing  first  quietly  and  then  in  a  slowly  ascending  key: 
"  And  it's  brought  us  together,  Honey,  no  matter  how 
crazily  we  may  have  been  acting.  All  I've  got  now  is 
my  solemn-eyed  old  Cave-Man  —  and  instead  of  just  get- 


176  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

ting  the  crusts  of  life  together,  we're  going  to  sit  down  to 
the  whole  blessed  big  pie !  So  kiss  me,  kiss  me  quick,  or 
I'll  start  to  scream  and  disgrace  you  before  this  whole 
stifling  old  building!  " 

Instead  of  kissing  her,  however,  he  stood  staring  at 
her  in  wonder,  alarmed  at  that  strongly  rising  note  of 
hysteria  in  her  throaty  voice.  For  the  first  time  in  his 
life,  indeed,  he  found  himself  without  any  inclination  to 
kiss  her.  What  was  more,  he  quite  failed  to  see  what 
kisses  had  to  do  with  the  situation. 

"  Kiss  me  —  quick!"  she  commanded. 

For  the  first  time,  as  he  turned  away  from  her,  he  saw 
the  square-faced  bottle  of  dry  gin  on  the  table,  with  the 
sugar  and  seltzer  and  squeezed  lemons  beside  it.  She 
had  been  drinking,  he  saw,  drinking  a  good  deal  more 
than  could  be  good  for  her.  Not  that  she  was  drunk,  or 
even  thick-tongued  and  muddled.  He  had  never  seen  her 
in  that  condition,  and  he  imagined  that  he  never  should. 
But  instinct  and  early  training  combined  to  make  a 
woman's  use  of  intoxicants  still  repulsive  to  him.  The 
men  and  women  in  Torrie's  world,  he  remembered,  took 
a  view  quite  opposite  to  his,  which  they  would  have 
laughed  at  as  provincial,  as  smug  and  mid-Victorian. 
And  that  world,  in  a  way,  was  already  his  own  world. 
He  had  entered  it  and  was  being  made  a  part  of  it ;  and 
in  Rome,  he  concluded,  it  was  acknowledged  best  to  do 
what  the  Romans  did.  There  were  still  certain  aspects 
of  that  world  which  he  could  not  comprehend.  Its  casual 
liberties,  its  freedom  of  intercourse,  its  topsy-turvydom 
of  standards,  were  still  a  bewilderment  to  him.  Repeat 
edly  he  was  being  confronted  by  that  freemasonry  of 
bohemia  which  kept  warning  him  there  would  have  to 
be  ever-renewed  shifts  in  the  outposts  of  behaviour,  in 
explicable  contractions  at  one  point  and  equally  inexplica 
ble  expansions  at  another.  He  dreaded,  as  all  men  of 
sensibilities  dread,  the  accusation  of  narrowness.  In 
iquity,  he  knew,  was  not  peculiar  to  the  city.  He  had  seen 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  177 

enough  of  country  life  to  remember  that  impurity  could 
walk  in  lilaced  lanes  as  corruptingly  as  it  sidled  along 
lamp-lit  pavements.  But  in  the  crowded  centres  it 
brushed  more  disconcertingly  close  to  one.  And  still 
again  he  made  it  a  point  to  remember  that  he  was  a  new 
comer  to  that  great  city  so  contradictory  in  aspect  and 
so  indecipherable  in  impulse.  It  was  not  only  too  big  to 
be  changed ;  it  was  also  too  complex  in  its  blind  inter 
weaving  of  strata  for  him  to  choose  and  cleave  to  any  one 
particular  plane.  It  was  he  himself,  and  not  the  city, 
that  must  change.  Yet  inevitable  as  those  changes  were, 
he  had  no  intention  of  leaving  life  little  more  than  a  mush 
of  concessions.  He  would  always  insist  on  elbow-room 
for  his  soul. 

And  it  was  becoming  more  and  more  difficult,  he  felt 
as  he  crossed  to  Torrie's  side  and  kissed  her  for  the  sake 
of  peace,  and  purely  for  the  sake  of  peace,  to  distinguish 
between  advance  and  retrogression,  between  enslavement 
and  emancipation.  For  just  a  moment,  before  he  drank 
down  the  gin-rickey  which  she  had  mixed  for  him,  he 
entertained  a  suspicion  that  his  wife's  insistence  on  physi 
cal  contact  was  for  inflammatory  and  obliterative  ends,  to 
burn  up  in  a  flame  of  passion  all  traces  of  more  trivial 
emotion,  as  the  burglar  has  been  known  to  burn  the  man 
sion  after  ransacking  its  treasure-chests.  But  by  the 
time  he  had  finished  his  second  gin-rickey  he  no  longer 
gave  harbourage  to  such  battered  suspicions.  It  was  a 
new  world,  he  told  himself,  and  he  was  there  to  make  the 
most  of  it,  to  make  the  most  of  it  with  Torrie  at  his  side. 
And  as  though  to  seal  that  determination,  he  asked  for 
still  another  gin-rickey. 


CHAPTER   FIFTEEN 

STORROW,  in  making  the  most  of  his  new  world 
with  Torrie  at  his  side,  found  a  number  of  things 
to  tax  both  his  patience  and  his  resolution.  His 
studio,  in  the  first  place,  betrayed  symptoms  of  becoming 
embarrassingly  overcrowded,  once  the  Vibbard  apartment 
had  been  cleared  of  his  wife's  belongings  and  the  com 
municating  door  had  been  duly  locked  and  sealed.  Tor 
rie,  too,  had  little  of  Storrow's  sense  of  orderliness,  and 
sustained  application  to  that  work  with  which  he  knew 
life  could  alone  be  justified  became  more  and  more  diffi 
cult.  Yet  he  was  unable  to  accuse  Torrie  of  not  doing 
her  part.  She  had  imposed  on  her  friends,  he  grew  to 
understand,  a  tacit  conspiracy  of  absenteeism,  and  few 
indeed  were  the  callers,  outside  of  the  irrepressible  Pan- 
nie  Atwill  and  the  persistently  loyal  Hardy,  who  came  to 
interrupt  them. 

It  struck  Storrow  as  odd,  as  the  weeks  slipped  by,  that 
the  constraint  existing  between  Torrie  and  Hardy,  in 
stead  of  diminishing,  grew  both  more  active  and  more  ob 
servable.  He  spoke  of  this  one  night,  after  coming  home 
in  time  to  witness  Torrie  bidding  his  friend  from  the 
Avenue  a  none  too  cordial  farewell. 

"  Why  don't  you  learn  to  like  Hardy  a  little  better?  " 
he  asked  as  Torrie  proceeded  to  shake  up  the  cocktails 
with  which  they  now  invariably  preceded  dinner. 

Instead  of  answering  that  question  Torrie  turned  and 
asked  him  another. 

"  What  does  the  note  of  Ecclesiastes  mean?  "  she  half- 
indifferently  inquired. 

178 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  179 

"The  note  of  Ecclesiastes  ? "  he  repeated.  "Who 
used  that  phrase  ?  " 

"  Chester  Hardy  did.  He  seemed  to  insinuate  that 
that's  the  note  we're  going  to  end  up  on.  He  may  know 
what  it  means,  but  I  don't." 

Storrow  stopped  short. 

"  What  was  Hardy  talking  about?  "  he  demanded. 

Torrie,  before  answering  that  question,  drank  down 
her  cocktail. 

"  As  far  as  I  can  make  out  he  doesn't  seem  to  think 
we're  suited  to  each  other.  He  says  we  look  at  life  from 
altogether  different  sides.  And  he  announced  to  me, 
Honey  Bun,  that  now  you  were  in  my  hands,  I'd  have  to 
treat  you  as  though  you  were  made  of  Dresden  china." 

"  And  what  particular  business  is  all  that  of  Hardy's?  " 
asked  Storrow  out  of  the  silence  that  had  fallen  over 
him. 

"  That's  what  I've  been  wondering,"  observed  Torrie 
as  she  handed  Storrow  his  cocktail.  He  stared  down  at 
the  thin-shanked  glass  abstractedly.  That,  he  remem 
bered,  was  one  of  Tome's  contributions  to  their  menage. 
After  he  had  emptied  it,  still  without  speaking,  he  re 
alized  that  he  had  been  tired  in  both  body  and  mind. 

"By  the  way,  how  did  you  happen  to  know  Hardy?  " 

Torrie,  before  answering  that  question,  crossed  to  the 
kitchenette  and  just  as  slowly  returned  to  the  table. 

"  Doesn't  everybody  know  him  ?  I  happened  to  meet 
him,  the  same  as  other  people  do." 

"When?" 

"  Two  or  three  years  ago,"  she  patiently  replied. 

"  And  he's  been  nothing  but  a  casual  friend?  " 

Torrie,  stooping  over  the  table,  looked  up  sharply. 

"  He's  never  even  been  that.  \Vhat'd  interest  me  in 
that  dried  up  fish  who's  always  prowling  around  inspect 
ing  people  as  though  they  were  museum  specimens  ?  And 
I  know  what's  the  matter  with  him  at  this  very  moment. 
He's  souring  with  envy,  just  plain  everyday  envy.  He 


i8o  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

missed  his  chance  of  getting  any  happiness  out  of  life, 
and  he's  sore,  without  knowing  it,  at  seeing  us  trying  to 
be  happy!  " 

"  That  dried  up  fish,"  Storrow  carefully  reminded  her, 
"  has  been  a  good  friend  of  mine." 

"  But  you  can't  get  away  from  the  fact,  Honey,  that  it 
was  me  you  married.  And  I  intend  to  come  first,  no 
matter  what  the  outsiders  may  say.  And  we're  going  to 
be  happy,  aren't  we,  Owen,  no  matter  what  Hardy  may 
imagine?  " 

"  That,  I  think,  depends  more  on  ourselves  than  on 
Hardy." 

She  came  and  sat  on  the  arm  of  his  chair,  apprehensive 
of  returning  solemnities. 

"  If  we  love  each  other,  my  own,  it's  nobody's  business, 
and  nothing  matters.  But  you  must  love  me.  You 
must.  I've  got  to  have  it.  Do  you?  Do  you?  '' 

"  Of  course,"  he  said,  capitulating  before  the  barrage 
of  her  caresses,  at  the  same  moment  that  he  stood  con- 
scions  of  the  celerity  with  which  that  artillery  could  al 
ways  be  wheeled  into  place. 

"Then  kiss  me!  No,  not  that  way.  My  way!" 
Then  muffled,  through  her  contented  cries  of  protest,  she 
murmured:  "You  .  .  .  beloved  .  .  .  big  .  .  .  brute!" 

It  was  Pannie  Atwill  who  invaded  the  studio  the  next 
night  as  Storrow  sat  at  a  paper-littered  work-table  ab 
sorbed  in  his  story,  the  loquacious  Pannie  more  loose- 
jointed  than  ever.  There  was  something  conspicuously 
uncouth,  Storrow  saw,  even  in  her  newer  manner  of 
speech. 

"  Hello,  Torrie,  how's  tricks?  I  just  gotta  get  a  peek 
at  your  map  to  make  sure  they  haven't  planted  you  over 
to  Greenwood!  Hello  there,  Capt'n  Kidd.  But  gimme 
a  gasper  quick  or  I'll  pass  away."  The  next  moment  her 
exuberant  young  lungs  were  filled  with  smoke.  Then 
she  regarded  Storrow  out  of  one  corner  of  her  eye. 
"  Say,  Torrie,  why  is  that  big  Woof -Woof  of  yours  so 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  181 

afraid  o'  me?  No,  Shakespeare,  don't  stop  the  master 
piece.  Keep  right  on  dreamin',  for  rent-day's  on  the 
road  and  the  high  cost  o'  lovin'  ain't  lowerin'  any  as  far 
as  I  can  see.  But  look  here,  Torrie  Throssel,  don't  you 
get  fat,  whatever  happens.  There  ain't  no  such  animal 
as  a  perfect  thirty-eight,  not  in  our  world.  And,  Dearie, 
you  sure  ought  to  doll  up  a  little,  even  if  that  soul-mate 
o'  yours  isn't  askin'  for  a  pink  mesh  over  the  peach- 
basket." 

"  Can  that !  "  was  Torrie's  preoccupied  command, 
keyed  down  to  the  plane  of  Pannie's  comprehension. 
But  Pannie  was  not  to  be  silenced. 

"  If  I  owned  that  book-worm  over  there  I'd  make  him 
sit  up  nights  and  dig  out  an  Amurrican  C'mill  for  me  to 
star  in  and  put  that  Klennert  dame  out  o'  business. 
What's  doin' ?  Yes,  of  course;  I  knew  you'd  take  it 
serious  once  you  got  it.  Well,  as  Donnie  Eastman  used 
to  say,  it's  a  great  life  if  you  keep  the  lining  in!  And 
speakin'  o'  that  toiler  reminds  me.  Donnie  took  the 
bunch  out  to  Krebbler's  last  night,  and,  believe  me,  it  was 
some  party !  The  bubble-watter  flowed  knee-deep.  And 
Demmy  Varge  Dyckman  got  doin'  her  Castle-stunt  on 
the  table  and  wre  was  all  put  out  at  three  a.  m.  And 
Donnie  was  askin'  me  what  mausoleum  you  was  nailed 
up  in  and  if  you  was  too  dead  to  sit  in  a  Rolls-Royce 
some  afternoon  when  the  walkin'  was  heavy.  But  of 
course  the  Big  Push  over  there'd  blow  up  if  he  thought 
you  was  gettin'  a  lungful  of  open  air.  That's  men  for 
you!  " 

"  Oh,  no  it  isn't,"  quickly  corrected  Torrie  through  the 
intervening  blue  haze  of  smoke.  "  It  was  the  state  of 
matrimony  I  entered,  not  a  state  prison." 

"  What's  the  difference,  Dearie?  " 

"  The  difference  is  that  I'm  in  it  because  I  like  it,  be 
cause  I  prefer  it,  and  not  because  I  can't  escape  it." 

"  Coo  on,  birdie !  "  mocked  her  loquacious  visitor.  "  I 
was  that  way  once,  but  he  was  a  plumber  and  he  took  to 


182  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

usin'  the  pipe-tongs  on  me.  But  what  I  come  up  to  tell 
you  was  that  I'd  given  posin'  the  shake  and  signed  up  with 
The  Girl  of  Girls  company.  And  Bennie  Veals  is  sure 
workin'  the  feet  off'n  us  in  that  new  beach-dance  he 
brought  straight  back  from  H'waya  with  him.  He 
cussed  me  today  until  that  Adam's  Apple  o'  his  was 
workin'  with  a  three-inch  plunge  and  ended  up  by  in- 
quirin'  if  I  ever  suspected  I'd  got  nothin'  north  o'  my 
neck-bones.  And  when  we  was  peelin'  back  in  the  duds- 
room  I  asked  them  Broadway  fairies  if  havin'  to  take 
langwige  like  that  lyin'  down  had  anything  on  gettin' 
goose-flesh  doin'  the  Spring  nymph  stuff  in  a  draughty 
studjeo  wit'  the  steam  off  and  the  janitor  dead  at  the 
wheel !  " 

"  Then  why  do  you  stay  where  Veals  can  treat  you  that 
way?  "  asked  Torrie  as  her  husband  got  up  from  his  chair 
and  walked  with  a  suppressed  groan  to  the  \vindow. 

"  You  know  what  the  stage  is,  Dearie,  once  you  get  bit 
with  the  bug,"  remarked  Pannie  as  she  turned  and  in 
spected  the  distressed  Storrow  with  an  indifferent  eye. 
"Do  I  disturb  you,  Homer?"  she  smilingly  inquired. 

Storrow  swung  about  on  her,  stung  beyond  endurance 
by  that  final  impertinence. 

"  Not  as  much  as  you  disgust  me,"  he  cried,  seeming 
to  see  personified  in  Pannie  all  that  was  abhorrent  in 
the  new  life  into  which  he  was  so  insidiously  being  el 
bowed. 

Pannie,  digging  a  rouge-stick  from  her  hand-bag  and 
passing  it  imperturbably  across  her  tips,  continued  to 
survey  her  host  with  contemptuously  appraising  eyes. 

"  Sweeten  up,  old  top,  or  that  grouch'll  be  takin'  you 
back  to  where  the  caribou  graze,"  she  had  the  effrontery 
to  assert. 

It  was  uttered  lightly  enough,  that  careless  taunt  of  a 
slangy  chorus-girl,  but  it  struck  sharp  as  an  arrow-point 
against  the  nettled  flank  of  consciousness.  It  awakened 
in  Storrow's  mind  his  first  faint  spark  of  longing  for 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  183 

that  saner  world  of  peace  and  open  spaces  which  was 
now  denied  him.  It  made  him  think  of  an  arching  sky  of 
robin-egg  blue,  of  steel-grey  waters  lapping  against  lich- 
ened  rocks,  of  pine-clad  ridges  black  against  the  setting 
sun,  of  the  sound  of  the  wind  through  spruce  and  fir,  and 
the  smell  of  burning  tamarack.  And  for  the  first  time, 
deep  in  the  core  of  his  heart,  he  nursed  a  vague  but  un 
mistakable  regret  for  other  days. 

"  I  don't  think  Pannie  deserved  that,"  reproved  Torrie 
when  the  apparently  unperturbed  Miss  Atwill  had  taken 
her  departure. 

"  Is  that  the  type  of  woman  you  want  to  spend  your 
life  with?"  countered  her  still  indignant  husband. 

"  That  sounds  intolerant." 

"  Then  it's  a  type  I  intend  to  be  intolerant  with,"  was 
the  other's  prompt  response.  Torrie  sat  silent  for  a 
time,  apparently  weighing  what  she  was  about  to  say. 

"  People  are  apt  to  misjudge  Pannie,"  she  finally  ob 
served.  "  Her  bark  is  always  a  good  deal  worse  than 
her  bite.  She  keeps  up  that  trick  of  clowning  because  her 
friends  demand  it  of  her.  And  she  has  more  friends  in 
this  town,  Owen,  than  you  would  ever  imagine.  And 
having  friends,  don't  you  think,  is  really  one  of  the  final 
tests  of  life?" 

"  At  Krebbler's  about  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  ?  " 
demanded  Storrow,  detecting  a  knife-edge  buried  in  the 
rose-leaves  of  Torrie's  quietly  uttered  interrogation. 

"  That,"  retorted  the  meditative-eyed  woman  in  the 
faded  arm-chair,  "  was  probably  her  little  revolt  against 
the  drabness  of  life,  the  kind  of  revolt  that  too  much 
monotony  and  too  much  restraint  can  start  in  almost  any 
woman." 

Storrow,  on  thinking  this  over,  decided  to  make  no 
reply  to  it.  But  the  import  of  the  message,  if  message 
it  was  meant  to  be,  remained  deep  in  his  mind,  leaving 
there  an  area  of  sensitiveness,  as  sore  to  the  touch  as  flesh 
in  which  a  thorn  lies  embedded. 


184  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

Torrie,  on  the  other  hand,  had  the  satisfaction  of  find 
ing  him  less  intolerant  than  of  old  to  the  friends  who 
formed  the  habit  of  dropping  in  more  and  more  often  to 
see  her.  Pannie  Atwill  herself  proved  incapable  of  nurs 
ing  a  grudge,  though  Torrie's  secret  advice  as  to  re 
straint  left  her  with  a  new  and  unlooked-for  bashfulness 
in  the  presence  of  the  slightly  bewildered  Storrow.  Yet 
he  was  able,  as  he  understood  her  better,  to  formulate 
an  opinion  of  her  and  her  kind  which  was  not  untouched 
with  admiration.  Under  their  thinness  of  mind  and 
roughness  of  speech,  he  found,  \vas  often  enough  to  be 
discerned  odd  out-croppings  of  integrity  and  blithe  seri 
ousnesses  of  purpose.  But  the  idleness  of  stage-life,  he 
felt,  was  too  much  for  them.  Their  work,  over-hectic 
at  first  only  to  become  over-mechanical  in  the  end,  event 
ually  left  them  with  empty  hands  and  empty  days.  So 
they  were  driven  into  foregathering,  after  a  fashion  of 
their  own,  in  side-street  apartment-hotels  and  rooming- 
houses,  in  none  too  orderly  studios  and  crowded  flats,  to 
whip  up  their  jaded  hours  with  tobacco  and  talk  and 
alcohol.  For  they  seemed  never  to  have  learned,  these 
gregarious  wanderers,  the  art  of  being  self-sufficient. 
They  could  not  live  without  companionship. 

Modrynski,  when  he  invaded  Torrie's  studio  before 
the  end  of  the  month,  brought  with  him  an  altogether  dif 
ferent  atmosphere.  He  made  his  appearance  as  immacu 
late  as  ever  but  complaining  of  the  neuritis  in  his  legs 
which  made  the  climbing  of  so  many  stairs  an  inheritance- 
tax  on  devotion.  With  Storrow,  as  he  sat  sipping  Ver 
mouth  and  nibbling  arrowroot  biscuits,  he  was  both  af 
fable  and  courtly,  talking  art  with  the  airy  and  imperious 
volubility  of  a  Whistler.  With  Torrie  he  was  abstract 
edly  and  paternally  affectionate,  leaving  with  her  as  he 
took  his  departure  a  crumpled  handful  of  seats  for  the 
Metropolitan  which  he  felt  sure  she  and  her  young 
friends  could  make  use  of. 

"  It's  a  great  thing,  Torrie,  this  being  young,"  he  said 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  185 

as  with  slightly  palsied  fingers  he  buttoned  his  fur-lined 
overcoat.  "  But  that's  something  you  and  your  muscular 
Romeo  over  there  won't  know  until  your  fine  young 
bodies  start  to  wear  out !  Good-bye,  my  dear,  and  re 
member  not  to  be  too  happy.  There's  nothing  so  de 
vastating  to  an  interesting  woman  as  too  much  happiness. 
It  kills  line.  And  line,  to  the  artist,  is  life!  " 

Torrie,  as  she  closed  the  studio  door,  turned  and  faced 
her  still  frowning  husband. 

"  You  see  what  you've  got  to  do,  Honey-Bun  ?  You've 
got  to  beat  me!  If  you  want  to  keep  me  fit  to  look  at 
you've  got  to  keep  me  miserable.  Modrynski  says  so. 
And  Modrynski  is  an  authority." 

"  That  man  seems  to  look  on  human  beings  as  nothing 
more  than  bone  and  muscle,"  remarked  Storrow. 

"  That's  what  he  pays,  I  suppose,  for  being  a  sculptor. 
That's  what  you  pay  for  having  been  one.  Sometimes  I 
feel  that  you've  forgotten  I've  got  a  soul  and  only  want 
to  remember  that  I've  got  a  body,  a  body  that's  not  un 
comfortable  to  hold,  when  it's  not  getting  in  your  way." 

Storrow  glanced  about  quickly,  at  this  unlocked  for 
note  from  her.  It  was  a  reproof,  he  felt  in  his  heart, 
though  still  tacit  reproof.  And  he  was  firmly  yet 
secretly  resolved  that  it  should  prove  unmerited. 

When  Donnie  Eastman  appeared  the  next  day,  with 
a  high-powered  touring-car  stripped  of  its  hood,  Storrow 
found  that  resolution  of  his  being  put  to  the  acid  test. 
He  had  no  desire  for  joy-riding  with  a  "  Johnnie  "  who 
lisped.  He  was  anxious  to  get  on  with  his  work  so  that 
Hardy  could  run  a  guiding  hand  over  his  last  half  dozen 
chapters,  as  the  older  man  had  promised.  But  Torrie 
was  insistent.  She  was  first  petulant  and  then  imperious. 
Rather  than  see  his  authority  put  to  the  test,  rather  than 
behold  her  riding  off  with  the  quite  undisturbed  Donnie 
Eastman  and  the  three  rainbow-hued  show-girls  already 
piled  in  his  back  seats,  Storrow  yielded  the  point  and 
climbed  into  the  rakish-lined  car  of  battleship  grey. 


186  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

The  excursion  did  not  begin  auspiciously.  Torrie  sat 
in  the  driver's  seat  beside  Donnie  Eastman,  laughing  and 
talking  as  her  husband  had  not  seen  her  laugh  and  talk 
for  months.  The  loquacity  of  the  three  beaded-eyed 
girls  about  Storrow  depressed  him.  An  unceasing  but 
indeterminate  undertone  of  obliquity  in  their  talk  seemed 
to  bar  him  back  from  the  currents  of  their  levity. 
Denied  the  secret  of  their  continual  laughter  and  chat 
tering,  he  no  longer  made  an  effort  to  talk.  He  became 
silent  and  then  morose.  He  hated  the  perfumes  emanat 
ing  from  their  over-dressed  bodies,  seeming  to  taint  even 
the  fresh  air  that  blew  in  his  face.  He  despised  their  im 
moderate  laughter  and  their  smartness  and  their  lobster- 
palace  slang.  He  nettled  with  secret  shame  when  Torrie 
light-heartedly  joined  them  in  a  cabaret-song  of  the  day. 
The  strident  music  of  Tin-Pan  Alley  seemed  a  defilement 
of  the  purling  brooks  and  the  chrome-coloured  meadows 
past  which  they  hummed. 

"  Sing,  you  melancholy  dog,  sing !  "  laughed  Torrie 
over  her  shoulder  at  him.  But  Storrow  had  no  intention 
of  singing. 

When  they  arrived  at  the  road-house  with  a  glassed-in 
porch  crowded  with  tables,  the  owner  of  the  car  greeted 
the  head-waiter  by  name,  waved  companionably  to  the 
orchestra-leader,  railed  at  the  wine-list  and  sent  word  to 
the  chef  that  when  he  ordered  ruddy  duck  he  expected  it 
that  way  or  he'd  ruddy  the  demned  Neopolitan's  nose. 
This  threat,  lispingly  uttered,  was  carried  away  by  an 
ingratiatingly  attentive  waiter,  a  waiter  with  eyes  as 
melancholy  as  Don  Quixote's,  who  duly  returned  to 
authenticate  the  label  on  Donnie's  vintage  wine  and  in 
quire  if  monsieur  would  have  his  favourite  salad. 

Storrow,  realizing  that  he  remained  an  outlander  in 
that  noisy  and  convivial  party,  drank  steadily  and  deter 
minedly.  He  drank,  hoping  to  find  his  heaviness  of 
heart  soluble  in  the  amber  liquids  from  those  narrow- 
necked  bottles.  But  the  reaction,  for  some  reason,  failed 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  187 

to  make  itself  manifest.  The  wine  seemed  sour  on  his 
lips,  even  sourer  in  his  heart,  and  the  rest  of  the  com 
pany,  after  an  ironic  effort  or  two  to  prod  him  into  the 
currents  of  their  merriment,  left  him  entirely  to  his  own 
devices.  He  burned  with  a  perilous  resentment  when 
one  of  the  hydrogenated  blondes  sitting  next  to  Donnie 
Eastman  leaned  over  and  said  something  about  "  The 
melancholy  Dane."  That,  he  inwardly  raged,  was  the 
fruit  of  his  own  wife's  taunt  from  the  front  of  the  car. 
He  waited,  like  a  leopard  on  a  rock-ledge,  for  his  delicate- 
fingered  host  to  echo  that  affront,  even  to  acknowledge 
it,  secretly  dramatizing  the  expeditiousness  with  which  he 
would  land  on  that  weakling  and  exterminate  him. 

But  Donnie,  puzzled  by  the  look  on  Torrie's  suddenly 
sobered  face,  was  for  once  discreet.  And  on  the  way 
back  to  the  city  Torrie  insisted  on  being  old-fashioned 
enough  to  sit  beside  her  husband.  She  did  not  join  in 
the  singing  as  they  flashed  and  hummed  homeward 
through  lamp-strewn  valleys  past  blinding  headlights  and 
silent  woodlands  and  echoing  bridge-walls.  She  had  seen 
that  semaphoric  flash  from  his  eyes,  glowing  with  the 
banked  fires  that  were  converting  his  soul  into  a  miniature 
Vesuvius,  and  she  knew  enough  to  respect  it.  Nor  was 
she  so  indiscreet,  after  that  night,  as  to  refer  unneces 
sarily  to  Donnie  Eastman  and  his  road-house  dinner 
party.  Storrow's  own  reference  to  Eastman,  a  day  or 
two  later,  was  an  unpremeditated  one. 

"If  that's  a  sample  of  your  millionaire  class,"  he  was 
heard  to  say,  "  it's  no  wonder  your  country's  starting  to 
run  to  socialism." 

This  remark  was  made  to  Chester  Hardy,  still  the  most 
frequent  visitor  at  the  Twenty-Fourth  Street  Studio  and 
still  intent  on  piloting  Storrow  through  the  mine-field  of 
his  first  manuscript.  That  guiding  hand,  indeed,  was 
much  more  active  than  Storrow  understood  at  the  time. 
Equally  persistent  were  the  older  man's  efforts  to  lead 
Storrow  off,  now  and  then,  into  a  cooler  and  higher  area 


188  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

of  existence.  This  involved  an  occasional  lunch  at  an 
impressively  torpid  club,  an  occasional  patrol  of  the  pic 
ture-galleries,  an  occasional  cup  of  tea  in  a  house  where 
the  muffled  machinery  of  life  made  his  thoughts  turn 
back  to  the  Kirkner  home. 

These  casual  entertainments,  indeed,  ramified  into  en 
gagements  more  formal,  so  that  as  the  winter  set  in  Stor- 
row  found  himself  contending  between  two  forces  in 
that  city  which  now  harboured  him,  the  segregative  in 
stinct  of  the  creative  artist  jealous  of  accomplishment 
and  the  fraternizing  impulses  of  youth  confronted  by  the 
ever-opening  vistas  of  a  new  environment.  And  the 
closer  he  approached  the  centre  of  the  maelstrom,  he 
found,  the  greater  proved  the  suctional  power  of  its 
vortex.  It  was  only  too  easy,  he  saw,  to  plunge  into 
those  manifold  activities  and  distractions  which  sur 
rounded  him,  which  sought  to  make  him  a  flying  part  of 
the  flying  current.  Yet  joined  to  the  tug  of  the  contrary 
impulse  towards  seclusion,  the  desire  of  quiet  hours  for 
work  and  meditation,  was  always  the  thought  of  Torrie. 
It  was  an  armistice,  and  only  an  armistice,  that  existed 
between  her  and  Hardy.  And  Storrow,  in  arguing  that 
the  city  could  give  him  much  but  on  the  other  hand  could 
rob  him  of  even  more,  for  a  time  refused  to  surrender 
completely  to  either  force.  It  was  a  concession,  he  knew, 
but  he  was  beginning  to  feel  that  life  was  made  up  of 
concessions. 

This  truth  was  all  the  more  impressed  on  him  when  he 
returned  to  the  studio  one  night  after  dining  with  the 
Rhinelanders  where,  Hardy  had  casually  intimated,  he 
would  have  a  chance  of  meeting  Arthur  Scranton,  the 
publisher,  who  was  keenly  interested  in  wood-craft  and 
wild-life  material.  It  wras  a  meeting  that  carried  the 
promise  of  future  developments,  though  Storrow  little 
dreamed  how  adroitly  and  painstakingly  it  had  been  en 
gineered  by  the  astute  Hardy.  He  went  home,  accord 
ingly,  with  his  triumph  tempered  by  a  vague  sense  of 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  189 

shame  at  what  more  and  more  assumed  the  colour  of 
neglect  of  Torrie.  Yet  this  vanished  at  a  breath  as  he 
opened  the  studio  door  and  found  her  quietly  talking  with 
Krassler. 

His  bow,  as  he  drew  off  his  gloves,  was  devoid  of 
warmth,  suspiciously  akin  to  the  parliamentary  bow  of  a 
politician  to  his  opponent. 

Krassler,  studying  him  with  his  chipmunky  brown  eyes 
through  a  haze  of  tobacco-smoke,  declined  to  be  intimid 
ated  by  any  such  austerities. 

"  Tome's  just  been  talking  about  your  book,"  he  ex 
plained. 

"  That  must  have  been  something  very  remote  from 
your  interests,"  was  Storrow's  unbending  retort. 

"  That's  where  you're  wrong,"  was  the  quick  and  quite 
unhostile  retort.  "  It's  hit  me  hard.  And  being  hit  by 
stories  is  more  a  part  of  my  business  than  you  probably 
imagine.  Only  it's  a  hell  of  a  long  time  between  hits !  " 

It  was  Torrie  who  spoke  next,  with  an  odd  little  flutter 
of  nervousness  in  her  voice. 

"  He  thinks,  Owen,  that  it  would  have  wonderful  pos 
sibilities  as  a  motion-picture." 

"  I'm  more  interested  in  its  possibilities  as  a  book,  just 
now,"  Storrow  non-committally  reminded  them. 

Krassler's  smile,  for  all  its  shrewdness,  was  a  condon 
ing  one. 

"  Naturally,  before  you  make  your  pie  you've  got  to 
catch  your  rabbit.  And  the  motion-picture  is  an  after 
consideration.  But  we're  all  going  more  and  more  into 
that  business  and  some  time  later  on  there  might  be  a 
couple  of  thousand  in  it  for  you.  I  say  there  might  be, 
remember,  for  both  books  and  cakes,  I  understand,  have 
the  habit  of  occasionally  coming  out  of  the  oven  without 
rising.  And  producers  aren't  overly  anxious  to  send 
companies  up  to  the  Sub-Arctics  for  location." 

That  was  all  that  came  of  the  matter,  at  the  time,  but 
it  had  already  served  to  remove  a  paling  or  two  from 


i9o  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

intervening  barriers  of  reserve.  The  two  men  sat  until 
after  midnight,  smoking  and  talking,  with  Torrie  in  the 
shadowy  background,  a  fleeting  look  of  contentment  on 
her  abstracted  face  as  she  watched  them  from  time  to 
time. 

"  That  man,"  acknowledged  Storrow  when  Krassler 
had  finally  taken  his  departure,  "  is  more  intelligent  than 
I  had  reason  to  suppose." 

"  And  you  treated  him,"  rejoined  Torrie,  "  with  more 
consideration  than  I  had  reason  to  expect." 

"  I  wouldn't  have  been  without  excuses  for  doing  other 
wise,"  was  Storrow's  retort,  conscious  of  an  unnecessary 
bitterness  in  his  wife's  remark.  But  Torrie,  deeming 
silence  the  better  part  of  discretion,  quietly  crossed  to  the 
windows  and  opened  them,  to  let  out  the  smoke  that  hung 
over-heavy  in  the  room  where  they  would  have  to  sleep. 

There  were,  however,  still  other  intangible  palings  that 
were  going  down,  still  other  barriers  that  were  being 
eroded  away  by  the  steady  currents  of  circumstance. 
Storrow,  agreeing  with  Torrie  that  his  place  was  at  her 
side,  seemed  to  grow  less  and  less  reluctant  to  join  her  in 
those  "  parties  "  which  he  had  at  first  attended  only  under 
protest.  He  even  found  himself,  at  times,  ready  to  de 
fend  them,  ready  to  extenuate  the  heavy  drinking  and  the 
casual  profanity  of  the  women,  ready  to  aver  that  these 
lighthearted  vagabonds  of  art  were  by  no  means  as  black 
as  they  painted  themselves.  Some  of  them,  it  is  true,  he 
could  not  fathom;  and  some  of  them,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  grew  to  like.  But  none  of  them  any  longer  regarded 
him  as  a  kill-joy. 

One  night,  indeed,  he  returned  from  an  exceptionally 
convivial  affair  at  The  Blacton  exceptionally  light  in  the 
head  and  unsteady  on  his  feet.  Torrie,  cooing  with 
laughter,  even  had  to  help  him  up  the  stairs.  But  once 
safe  in  the  studio,  he  stood  in  front  of  his  wife's  panel- 
mirror,  staring  intently  at  his  own  white  face,  with  the 
pupils  of  his  eyes  showing  black.  He  stared  at  himself 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  191 

for  a  long  time.  He  was  quite  drunk,  and  he  knew  it. 
He  seemed  to  be  looking,  not  at  himself,  but  at  another 
man,  a  man  not  unfit  to  be  wept  over,  a  pitiful  and  de 
graded  man  with  a  weak  mouth  and  a  quite  colourless 
skin.  But  as  he  stared,  shaken  with  pity,  at  that  mir 
rored  ghost  of  himself,  his  tendency  to  tilt  unexpectedly 
forward  on  his  feet  brought  him  lurching  flat-nosed 
against  the  glass,  where  he  leaned  for  a  moment  or  two, 
unable  to  recover  himself.  Torrie  tumbled  headlong 
into  the  big  wing-chair,  shrieking  with  laughter,  as  she 
caught  sight  of  him.  That  brought  him  to  his  feet,  stung 
into  a  resentment  which  at  the  moment  he  could  neither 
define  nor  express.  Yet  he  was  able,  by  some  strange 
duality  accompanying  his  intoxication,  to  step  out  of  his 
own  skin,  as  it  seemed,  and  impersonally  inspect  and  ap 
praise  the  thing  that  he  was  becoming,  that  he  had  already 
become.  He  said  nothing  to  the  girl  still  shaking  with 
laughter  in  the  faded  green  wing-chair.  But  a  great 
wave  of  self -hate  swept  through  his  sick  and  shaken 
body.  Drunkenness,  after  all,  was  not  happiness,  and 
he'd  had  quite  enough  of  it.  And  somewhere  at  the  calm 
and  central  core  of  his  dizzy  being  he  knew  that  such 
things  would  have  to  end,  and  end  soon.  He  owed  it  to 
himself.  He  owed  it  to  that  faint  and  unfairly  trampled 
spark  which,  if  it  went  out,  meant  the  obliteration  not 
only  of  happiness,  but  of  the  hope  of  happiness. 


CHAPTER   SIXTEEN 

"T  T"  J  HAT  about  your  play,   The  Pilot  Bird?" 

%  /\  I      Storrow   inquired   of   Hardy  a    few   days 

y    y        later  as  they  made  their  way  up  to  the 

Beaux  Arts  Studios  to  inspect  a  couple  of  new  pictures 

by  Henri  Veneur. 

"  Dead  but  not  buried,"  was  Hardy's  cryptic  retort. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that  they've  killed  it  for  Broadway  but  left  it 
presentable  for  a  winter's  run  on  the  road.  In  the 
theatrical  world,  however,  it's  a  case  of  ant  Caesar  out 
nihil.  And  a  production  nowadays  is  a  whale;  if  it  can't 
get  up  to  Broadway  to  breathe  it  can't  hope  to  live." 

"But  whose  fault  does  it  seem  to  be?  " 

"  I  don't  suppose  it's  the  fault  of  any  particular  per 
son,"  explained  the  older  man.  "  It's  the  fault  of  a  con 
dition.  A  production's  no  longer  a  personal  matter.  It's 
something  that  has  become  institutional.  But  its  insti- 
tutionalism  is  messed  up  with  a  taint  of  vagabondage,  the 
same  vagabondage  that  leaves  it  the  most  foolish  and  the 
most  romantic  business  in  America  today." 

"  Why  do  you  call  it  a  business?  " 

"  Because  that's  all  it  is.  Only  it's  a  business  com 
plicated  with  Woman,  and  that's  what  most  of  the  trouble 
arises  from.  The  stage,  you  see,  is  still  a  magnet  for  one 
type  of  woman,  the  physical  type,  the  type  intent  on  ex 
ploiting  its  own  beauty  and  charm.  The  mere  presence 
of  any  such  woman  on  the  stage  presupposes  personal 
vanity.  So  it  isn't  primarily  intelligence  that  you  have 
to  deal  with,  but  a  petted  and  petulant  star  and  a  support 
ing  company  who're  thinking  more  about  late  suppers 

192 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  193 

than  the  way  they  read  their  lines.  And  when  you  come 
down  to  the  musical  comedy  type,  the  show-girl  and  the 
chorus-girl,  you  get  something  as  frankly  physical,  of 
course,  as  the  artist's  model.  Her  business  is  strictly 
the  parade  of  flesh.  She  hasn't  the  slightest  need  for 
brains.  And  if  she  went  into  that  calling  with  brains, 
she'd  have  to  blow  'em  out  with  a  revolver,  or  wash  'em 
out  with  a  river  of  high-balls  —  which  seems  to  be  the 
more  approved  plan  of  the  two !  " 

"  But  there  are  cases,"  contended  Storrow,  "  where 
the  atmosphere  isn't  bad." 

"  The  atmosphere  may  not  always  be  bad,"  retorted  the 
other,  "  but  the  influences  are.  You  can't  set  up  a  clear 
ing-house  for  sex  —  and  that's  what  our  lighter  stage, 
stripped  of  its  mask,  really  is  —  and  expect  it  to  be  the 
abiding-place  of  Puritanism." 

Storrow,  conscious  of  the  fact  that  Hardy  might  be  hit 
ting  nearer  home  than  he  imagined,  especially  with  the 
allusion  to  high-balls,  was  stung  into  a  quick  but  futile 
spirit  of  opposition.  The  extent  to  which  Torrie  drank, 
for  a  woman,  had  been  disturbing  him  of  late.  And  he 
stood  equally  disturbed  by  the  ease  with  which  he  seemed 
to  be  following  in  her  steps.  He  had  never,  it  was  true, 
seen  her  entirely  under  the  influence  of  liquor.  She 
seemed  able  always  to  "  trim  the  boat,"  as  Pannie  Atwill 
had  once  expressed  it.  But  a  few  nights  before,  he  re 
membered,  a  dreamy  intonation  had  crept  into  her  voice 
and  she  had  merely  laughed  when  the  heaped-up  tray  of 
their  dishes  had  crashed  to  the  floor. 

These  disquieting  memories  were  ended  by  his  entrance 
to  The  Beaux  Arts,  where  the  telephone  and  the  elevator 
interposed  between  the  artist  and  his  callers.  And  in  that 
artist's  studio,  with  its  altar-cloths  from  Alatrio  and  its 
marbles  from  Rome  and  its  wall-tapestries  from  the  pal 
ace  of  a  mediaeval  prince,  Storrow  found  a  carefully 
fabricated  luxuriousness  strangely  in  contrast  with  the 
achieved  humbleness  of  the  MacDougall  Alley  studios 


194  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

which  he  had  visited  but  a  week  before  —  the  little  paved 
court  flanked  by  converted  coach-houses,  as  clean-swept 
as  the  street  of  a  peasant-village,  where  children  played 
quietly  and  quaintly,  unterrified  by  the  thought  of  tram 
or  motor-car.  Yet  these  impressions  were  swept  aside 
by  a  still  stronger  one,  born  of  a  chance-heard  remark 
that  passed  between  Veneur  and  Hardy  as  the  former  for 
the  second  time  passed  about  the  heavily  perfumed  Egypt 
ian  cigarettes. 

"  I  see  that  Vibbard  is  sailing  for  home  this  week." 

Hardy  accepted  this  piece  of  news  without  comment, 
beyond  a  scarcely  perceptible  shrug  of  one  diffident  shoul 
der.  Storrow,  on  his  part,  was  equally  willing  to  let 
pass  unobserved  intelligence  which  could  prove  so  fool 
ishly  and  so  indeterminately  disturbing.  Yet  it  filled  and 
shadowed  a  wide  area  of  his  consciousness,  touching  his 
spirit  with  a  vague  and  teasing  sense  of  unrest. 

Torrie  herself,  that  night,  oddly  enough  re-echoed  his 
own  vague  undertone  of  disquiet. 

"  I  wish,  Honey,  that  wre  could  slip  away  from  this 
old  hovel  for  a  few  weeks." 

"  Why?"  he  asked,  startled  by  that  initial  expression 
of  restlessness  from  her. 

Her  moment  of  hesitation  did  not  escape  him. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  she  said  with  a  show  of  listless- 
ness.  "  It's  only  that  I've  been  thinking  how  you've 
drudged  at  that  old  book  of  yours  and  how  a  little  holiday 
would  do  us  both  good  —  a  little  holiday  somewhere 
where  we  could  be  by  ourselves  and  just  hear  the  sound 
of  water  or  wind  in  the  tree-tops!  " 

"  Has  something  happened  this  week  to  make  you  feel 
that  way?"  he  asked. 

"Of  course  not,"  she  replied,  looking  up  quickly. 

"  Then  it's  something  you've  heard?"  he  persisted. 

"Something  I've  heard?"  she  repeated.  "What 
could  I  have  heard?" 

He  had  decided,   earlier  in  the  day,  to  say  nothing 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  195 

about  it.  But  now  he  merely  knew  the  necessity  of  un 
burdening  his  soul  of  the  truth. 

"  That  Vibbard's  coming  back  here  to  this  studio  of 
his,"  he  said  as  he  stood  up  and  faced  her. 

She  stared  up  at  him  with  no  visible  change  of  expres 
sion. 

"Who  told  you  that?"  she  finally  asked. 

"  Veneur,"  was  his  reply.  He  watched  her  as  she 
stooped  and  picked  up  a  fallen  hair-pin  from  the  floor. 

"  And  what  has  Vibbard's  coming  back  to  his  studio 
got  to  do  with  us?  "  she  demanded. 

"  That's  what  I  wanted  to  find  out,"  was  his  retort. 

She  leaned  back  in  her  chair,  apparently  deep  in 
thought. 

"  Owen,"  she  finally  said  with  an  achieved  quietness 
which  did  not  altogether  take  the  vibrant  tones  from  her 
voice,  "  I  have  given  myself  to  you.  I'm  giving  my  life 
up  to  you.  I  feel,  in  a  way,  that  I've  put  myself  in  your 
hands,  and  that  you  can  mould  me  and  shape  me  about 
the  same  as  you  used  to  shape  a  lump  of  moist  clay  into 
what  you  most  want  it  to  be.  I  fell  in  love  with  you,  and 
let  you  do  what  you  wanted  with  me.  I  love  you  now.  I 
know  that  as  well  as  I  know  I'm  sitting  in  this  chair  — 
and  I  think  you  know  it  too.  You  mean  more  to  me 
than  anything  in  my  old  life  ever  meant,  ever  could  mean. 
But  I  can't  help  feeling  that  the  power  this  gives  you 
over  me,  the  power  to  make  me  happy  or  miserable,  car 
ries  with  it  an  obligation  to  be  fair  to  what  I'm  trying  to 
be,  and  do.  I  hate  to  think  of  you  questioning  me,  and 
being  suspicious  of  me,  and  probing  about  in  the  past  for 
things  that  aren't  worth  digging  up  and  that  have  nothing 
to  do  with  our  lives  now  when  they  are  dug  up.  I  once 
said  that  we  could  be  as  happy  as  two  children,  if  we  only 
had  the  common-sense  to  keep  the  trick  of  happiness 
within  reach.  You  remember  that,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  I  remember  it,"  he  acknowledged,  both  relieved  and 
depressed  by  these  words  which  she  was  uttering  with  a 


196  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

new  and  unlocked  for  gift  of  articulation.  He  was,  too, 
acutely  conscious  of  her  beauty,  touched  now  with  a  new 
overtone  of  wist  fulness  that  struck  him  as  almost 
autumnal  in  its  tenderness. 

"  Life,  after  all,"  she  went  on  almost  wearily,  "  is  a 
race  between  happiness  and  the  undertaker  —  and  the 
undertaker  is  always  so  apt  to  win.  And  " — 

"  That  sounds  like  Modrynski,"  cut  in  her  husband, 
sharply. 

"  I  guess  that  was  thought  of  long  before  Modrynski 
was  born,"  replied  Torrie,  forlornly  tranquillized  by  her 
fleeting  little  contemplation  of  time's  infinitudes.  Her 
face,  relaxing  into  pensiveness,  disturbed  Storrow  by  its 
remoteness.  It  made  him  think  of  Rodin's  Le  Penseur. 
Yet  he  stood  shadowed  by  the  same  cloud  that  darkened, 
however  momentarily,  her  own  soul,  a  cloud  born  of  the 
consciousness  that  life  was  short  and  death  came  to 
everything  and  love  after  all  seemed  only  a  passionate 
embrace  on  the  brink  of  a  grave,  and  the  foolish  cry  of 
his  darkened  heart  for  something  permanent  in  the  midst 
of  the  things  that  must  surely  pass.  He  stared  at  the 
shadowy-eyed  woman  in  the  faded  green  arm-chair,  seem 
ing  to  find  her  made  suddenly  precious  through  very  im- 
permanence.  She  appeared  more  than  ever  remote  from 
him,  and  yet  very  near.  She  seemed  finished  and  free, 
courageous,  capable  always  of  choosing  her  own  paths 
and  her  own  ends.  Yet  the  next  moment  she  carried  to 
him  the  impression  of  a  harried  and  beaten  ship  being 
driven  before  the  wind,  buffeted  by  currents  over  which 
she  had  no  control,  the  toy  of  tides,  infinitely  older  and 
stronger  than  her  own  body.  An  indefinable  pity  for  her 
crept  up  into  his  heart,  a  wide  pity  in  which  his  temporal 
perplexities  betrayed  a  tendency  to  become  attenuated,  as 
thin  and  futile  as  a  row  of  gas-lamps  found  burning  after 
daybreak. 

They  talked  no  more  of  the  matter  in  hand,  that  night, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  197 

though  he  was  not  without  an  occasional  suspicion  that 
it  was  still  occupying  much  of  Torrie's  thought. 

Nor  did  he  find  his  own  soul  swept  quite  clean  of  its 
problems  by  this  tenuous  broom  of  emotionalism.  To 
wards  the  end  of  the  week,  when  he  knew  that  Torrie 
was  away  for  the  afternoon,  he  expended  three  dollars 
for  the  purchase  and  delivery  of  an  empty  piano-case. 
Then,  with  saw  and  hammer,  he  deliberately  and  cool- 
headedly  set  about  nailing  up  the  communicating  door 
between  the  two  studios.  He  removed  the  debris,  im 
pressed  with  a  sense  of  finality,  replacing  the  imitation 
Gobelin  tapestry  with  the  preoccupied  gravity  that  at 
taches  to  a  ceremony  fittingly  executed. 

It  was  several  days  before  Torrie  herself  discovered 
that  unexpected  and  significant  bit  of  carpentry.  Stor- 
row,  bent  over  his  work-table,  caught  the  sound  of  her 
sudden  gasp  and  looked  up  in  time  to  see  the  sharp  recoil 
of  her  body  as  she  let  the  tapestry  fall  back  in  place. 

"  Did  it  surprise  you?  "  he  quietly  demanded. 

"  No,"  she  said,  after  a  moment's  silence,  without  turn 
ing  about.  "  But  it  makes  me  think  of  a  coffin.  It  looks 
exactly  —  exactly  like  a  casket-box  on  end !  " 

"  Then  dc  mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum,"  remarked  the  man 
at  the  table,  remembering  the  ancient  phrase  from  one  of 
his  earliest  school-boy  orations.  And  of  that  dead  past, 
indeed,  nothing  good  or  bad  was  said,  though  Torrie  re 
mained  inordinately  quiet  during  the  next  few  days  and 
spent  a  greater  amount  of  her  time  away  from  the  studio. 
If  Storrow,  preoccupied  with  the  closing  chapters  of  his 
book,  was  conscious  of  these  absences,  he  offered  no  com 
ment  on  them. 

On  a  day  of  driving  snow,  with  the  wind  rattling  the 
casements  and  the  street-noises  of  the  city  strangely 
muffled,  Storrow  bundled  up  his  manuscript  and  an 
nounced  that  it  was  in  fit  and  final  shape  for  Hardy's 
judicial  eye.  He  decided,  with  the  impatience  of  the 


i98  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

artist  still  warm  with  the  fires  of  creation,  to  hear  at  once 
the  best  or  the  worst  that  his  older  friend  might  have  to 
say. 

"  You  don't  mind,  do  you?  "  he  asked  of  Torrie  as  he 
noticed  the  hesitating  light  in  her  eye.  He  was  dis 
turbingly  conscious  of  recent  neglect,  but  he  was  equally 
conscious,  on  the  other  hand,  that  a  new  and  less  worried 
regime  awaited  them. 

"  Of  course  I  don't  mind,"  she  told  him.  "  But  you 
must  bundle  up,  for  this  storm.  And  be  sure  and  wear 
your  rubbers." 

He  laughed  a  little  at  that.  To  him,  the  son  of  the 
North,  any  such  gentle  little  flurry  of  goose-feathers 
seemed  scarcely  worthy  of  being  called  a  storm.  He  was 
even  anxious  to  feel  the  wind,  cutting  from  river  to  river 
through  the  narrow  cross-streets,  bite  at  his  face  and 
sweep  the  cobwebs  from  his  brain.  Yet  it  pleased  him 
to  think,  as  he  dutifully  pulled  on  the  rubbers,  which  he 
despised,  that  she  could  worry  thus  foolishly  about  his 
welfare,  that  she  could  nurse  an  excuse  for  any  such 
chance  of  "  mothering  "  him. 

"  And  if  I'm  not  back  for  luncheon,"  he  explained, 
"  don't  worry.  Hardy  may  keep  me  there  for  three  or 
four  hours." 

She  followed  him  to  the  door,  signifying  her  under 
standing  by  a  silent  nod  of  the  head.  He  was  intent,  at 
the  moment,  on  speculating  as  to  what  Hardy's  verdict 
would  be.  It  meant  a  great  deal  to  him.  It  meant  a 
great  deal  to  them  both. 

"  Good  luck,  Honey,"  she  said,  with  a  wintry  little 
smile  strangely  in  contrast  to  the  throaty  intensity  of  her 
voice. 

He  stopped,  arrested  by  that  unlooked  for  note.  Then 
he  turned  back  to  her  in  the  gloomy  hallway. 

"  What  is  it?  "  he  demanded. 

"  Nothing,"  she  told  him. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  199 

"What  is  it?"  he  repeated,  coming  still  closer. 

"  You  forgot  something,"  she  reminded  him.  "  Some 
thing  I  need." 

He  laughed,  almost  sorrowfully,  as  he  took  her  in  his 
arms  and  held  her  close  against  his  rough  tweed  ulster. 
He  kissed  her,  depressed  by  a  sense  of  incompetence,  of 
heavy  clumsiness,  a  prey  to  the  shyness  which  sways  the 
naturally  reticent  man,  and  a  moment  later  made  a  hurried 
escape  down  the  stairs,  intent  on  hiding  some  wayward 
ebullition  of  emotion  from  her  eyes.  As  he  went  he 
overheard  the  strains  of  a  piano,  muffled  and  far-away, 
from  some  remoter  door  along  the  gloomy  hallway.  He 
recognized  the  air  from  Mignon,  the  air  he  had  always 
loved. 

"  Knowest  thou  the  land  where  the  citron  grows  ?  " 
he  murmured  as  he  faced  the  driving  snow,  weaving  that 
movement  so  accidentally  overheard  into  a  vague  and 
new-born  mood  of  aspiration,  and  accepting  it,  without 
stopping  to  reason  why,  as  a  good  omen. 

Yet  he  was  wrong  in  this,  he  found  when  he  had 
reached  Fifth  Avenue,  for  Hardy  was  not  at  home.  So 
he  scribbled  a  note  of  explanation,  left  it  beside  the  manu 
script,  and  once  more  faced  the  driving  snow  that  seemed 
to  put  a  soft  pedal  on  the  multitudinous  noises  of  the 
city.  He  wandered  idly  on,  released  from  all  thought  of 
time  and  destination,  isolated  by  the  whirling  screen  that 
made  even  a  skyscraper  a  thing  of  romance,  exhilarated 
by  the  whip  of  the  wind,  exulting  in  the  air  of  novelty 
which  a  mantling  whiteness  was  imposing  upon  every 
day  street-corners  and  once  familiar  buildings.  But  his 
delight  in  that  snow-storm,  it  suddenly  occurred  to  him, 
was  selfish.  He  would  get  Torrie  and  they  would  revel 
in  it  together.  So  he  swung  about  and  let  the  wind  drive 
him  homeward,  with  a  lightness  of  heart  which  was  too 
airy  even  to  stop  and  question  its  source. 

He  was  at  the  studio  door,  with  his  hand  thrust  out  to 


200  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

grasp  the  knob,  when  the  sound  of  voices  came  to  him. 
His  approach,  he  remembered,  had  been  silenced  by  the 
rubbers  which  he  wore. 

"  But  arc  you  happy?  "  he  heard  a  man's  voice  demand 
ing.  It  was  a  voice  new  to  Storrow.  It  was  a  voice 
with  some  slightest  tinge  of  foreign  intonation,  a  smooth 
and  mellow  voice  with  a  note  of  calm  authority  which 
seemed  to  approach  the  insouciant.  And  Storrow 
promptly  disliked  that  voice  as  a  voice,  translating  his 
antipathy  into  a  tenuous  justification  for  remaining  there 
motionless,  with  his  hand  arrested  on  the  knob  of  the 
door  which  he  declined  to  throw  open. 

"  Of  course  I'm  happy,  or  I  wouldn't  be  here,"  was 
Torrie's  reply.  It  was  uttered  coolly,  yet  with  a  touch 
of  irritability  in  its  frigidness.  There  was  the  sound  of 
a  laugh,  low  and  confident,  a  man's  laugh  which  proved 
unreasonably  disturbing  to  the  second  man  beyond  the 
door. 

"  You  say  that,"  argued  the  voice  with  the  slightly 
Gallicized  intonation,  "  but  something  in  your  eyes  tells 
me  that  it's  not  quite  the  truth." 

The  eavesdropper,  from  that  moment,  nursed  no  fur 
ther  qualms  of  conscience.  He  merely  waited,  foolishly 
tense,  for  what  might  come  next. 

"  Then  you'd  better  depend  more  on  what  I  say  than 
what  I  happen  to  appear,"  was  Torrie's  almost  listless 
retort. 

Her  companion,  it  was  apparent,  stood  determined  to 
ignore  any  note  of  hostility  from  her. 

"  But  when  you  happen  to  appear  so  unlike  the  old 
Torrie  I  used  to  know,  I  am  distrait,''  murmured  the 
other,  in  a  voice  so  low  that  Storrow  had  difficulty  in 
overhearing  it. 

"Then  why  worry  about  it?"  was  Torrie's  curt  de 
mand.  And  Storrow  knew,  by  this  time,  that  it  was 
Vibbard  talking  to  his  wife.  He  knew  it,  without  quite 
knowing  why  he  knew.  And  he  was  almost  glad  of  it, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  201 

in  a  way,  for  at  the  mere  vibrations  of  that  human  voice 
a  thousand  suspended  antipathies  and  animosities  were 
definitely  precipitated,  and  made  visible  in  the  stagnant 
pools  of  suspicion,  giving  a  focal  point  towards  which 
attention  might  thereafter  be  bent,  a  nucleus  of  offence  at 
last  ponderable  to  groping  intelligence. 

"  I  can't  help  worrying  about  it,  my  dear." 

"And  what  gave  you  that  right?"  Torrie  demanded. 

"  The  dead  past  that  is  never  quite  as  dead,  my  dear, 
as  we  imagine,"  was  the  other's  softly  enunciated  re 
sponse. 

"  Then  you'd  better  wait  and  discuss  that  right  with 
my  husband,"  challenged  Torrie,  obviously  angered  by 
the  other's  careless  fortitude. 

"  Husband !  "  cried  Vibbard.  "  That  word,  Torrie, 
seems  ridiculous  on  your  lips.  It  sounds  unreal.  I  can't 
imagine  you  married." 

"  But  I  am,"  was  the  low-toned  response. 

"  Then  I  can't  imagine  your  staying  married,  any  more 
than  I  can  imagine  a  stormy  petrel  in  a  sixpenny  willow 
cage.  You're  not  made  for  that  sort  of  life.  Your 
spirit,  my  dear,  is  too  free  and  big  for  that  sort  of  thing. 
It's  what  they  do  to  market-ducks  when  they  crowd  them 
into  a  shipping-crate.  They  tie  them  together,  stupidly. 
It's  what  they  do  to  jail-birds  when  they  want  to  make 
sure  of  their  captivity  —  hand-cuff  them  together,  like 
the  market-ducks.  But  for  a  woman  who  has  known 
liberty,  who  has  known  the  wing-sweep  of  untrammelled 
adoration,  who  has  learned  the  taste  of  freedom,  it  won't 
do,  it  simply  won't  do !  " 

It  was  Torrie  who  laughed  this  time,  though  there  was 
more  defiance  than  mirth  in  the  sound  of  that  laughter. 

"Then  what  do  you  intend  doing  about  it?"  she 
mocked.  Her  demand  was  followed  by  a  silence  of  sev 
eral  seconds. 

"  I  intend  to  take  you  in  my  arms,  you  beautiful  white 
flower,  and  crush  the  essence  of  rapture  from  your  lips," 


202  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

intoned    the    self -intoxicated    aesthete    confronting    her. 

"Against  my  will?"  asked  Torrie.  The  question 
seemed  so  calmly  uttered  that  it  took  on  a  touch  of  the 
meditative. 

'  Those  are  the  things  that  women  forget,"  murmured 
the  other. 

"  And  that's  the  way  a  nigger  treats  a  woman  —  and 
occasionally  gets  lynched  for  it,"  the  incisive-voiced  girl 
reminded  him. 

"  Lynching  is  easy  compared  to  the  torture  I  feel  when 
I  see  you  standing  there !  "  The  voice  lowered,  and  the 
last  of  the  mockery  went  out  of  it. 

"  Oh,  I  want  you,  Torrie,  no  matter  what  it  costs !  " 

The  silence  was  broken  by  a  sound  of  movement  within 
the  room. 

"  Wait !  "  It  was  Torrie's  voice,  a  little  shrill  with 
apprehension. 

"  I  can't  wait,"  cried  the  other,  with  a  quaver  in  his 
voice. 

It  was  at  that  moment  that  Storrow  swung  open  the 
studio  door. 

Torrie,  standing  under  the  wide-diffused  light  from 
the  snow-sprinkled  skylight  above  her,  did  not  move. 
The  only  movement  that  took  place  in  the  room,  once 
Storrow  had  swung  shut  the  door  behind  him,  was  from 
Vibbard.  He  wheeled  about,  with  a  transformation  that 
was  as  adroit  as  it  was  sudden,  and  faced  the  cast  of 
The  Sentinel  Wolf  that  stood  on  its  pedestal  against  the 
wall. 

'  Yes,  as  I  say,  there  is  undoubtedly  power  in  the  basic 
idea.  And  there  is  power,  too,  in  the  modelling,"  he 
intoned  with  a  quick  assumption  of  critical  detachment. 
It  was  both  foolish  and  futile,  advertising  a  dexterity  in 
subterfuge  which  tended  to  fan  Storrow's  rage  to  a  still 
whiter  heat.  For  in  it  the  newcomer  only  too  easily 
detected  an  odious  sophistication  in  intrigue,  an  adroit 
ness  at  protective  attitudinizing,  which  bespoke  the  gal- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  203 

lant  of  many  affairs.  And  Vibbard,  desperately  con 
scious  of  the  farce,  stopped  speaking  and  turned  slowly 
about  and  stared  at  the  intruder  with  his  back  to  the 
door. 

Silently  and  deliberately  Storrow  took  off  his  hat  and 
gloves,  and  then  his  overcoat,  tossing  them  on  the  floor 
beside  him.  He  wanted  nothing  to  interfere  with  his 
freedom  of  movement.  He  was  white,  almost  sick-look 
ing  in  the  uncertain  light,  all  the  forces  of  life  suddenly 
concentrated  at  the  core  of  his  being,  marshalled  and 
crowded  there  for  that  impending  supreme  effort  which 
the  outposts  of  instinct  announced  as  perilously  near. 

The  silence  was  not  broken  even  as  Storrow  stepped  to 
wards  the  other  man,  eyeing  him  with  steel-blue  medita- 
tiveness,  as  preoccupied  as  a  surgeon,  apparently,  before 
an  operation.  Vibbard,  he  observed,  was  a  much  larger 
man  than  he  had  been  led  to  expect  from  the  timbre  and 
intonations  of  his  voice.  Storrow  found  himself  almost 
able  to  exult  in  this,  for  it  meant  that  what  was  about  to 
come  would  not  come  with  too  unnerving  a  facility.  He 
also  nursed  a  vague  fear  that  the  other  man  might  in 
some  way  seek  safety  in  flight.  But  pride  was  too 
strong,  he  was  glad  to  see,  in  that  grey-faced  and  slightly 
gaping-mouthed  opponent  who  sensed  to  the  full  what 
was  coming  and  preferred  to  face  it  without  falling  back. 
So  strong  was  personal  pride  with  Vibbard,  in  fact,  that 
he  essayed  a  futile  and  forlorn  movement  to  save  his 
face,  even  at  the  last. 

"  I  suppose/'  he  said  in  an  exceptionally  thin  voice, 
"  this  is  some  new  brand  of  American  blackmail !  " 

It  was  a  doubly  unfortunate  remark.  And  it  proved 
to  be  the  last  one  from  Vibbard.  It  was  a  lash  on  the 
rawest  flank  of  Storrow's  overtried  nerves,  yet  a  lash 
which  turned  him  aside  from  his  intention  of  knocking 
the  other  man  down,  as  he  had  decided  to  do. 

He  declined  to  bestow  on  his  enemy  even  that  qualified 
dignity.  Instead,  he  caught  Vibbard  by  the  Avenue  de 


204  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

la  Paix  cravat  in  which  nested  his  Place  Vendome  cameo 
and  slapped  the  face,  contorted  with  sudden  loud  pro 
tests,  from  side  to  side,  as  a  kitten  slaps  a  spool.  It  was 
a  slap  with  the  open  hand,  painful  in  impact,  but  doubly 
humiliating  in  its  note  of  toying  condescension,  of  easy 
contempt.  When  Vibbard  attempted  to  clinch  and  save 
himself  from  this  punishment  Storrow  fell  to  mauling 
the  dandified  body  as  he  had  once  seen  a  grizzly  maul  a 
hunting-hound.  And  then  Vibbard,  driven  to  the  natural 
extremity  of  the  hopeless,  fell  to  clawing  and  biting  at 
his  assailant.  But  that  opposition  was  no  longer  neces 
sary  to  the  man  who  still  wore  a  pair  of  slush-stained 
rubbers  on  his  feet.  He  had  smouldered  for  months 
with  the  Vesuvian  fires  that  were  now  letting  themselves 
go.  He  was  releasing  in  action  the  poisons  which  week 
by  week  he  had  kept  within  him,  eating  like  acid.  Soured 
inhibitions,  stifled  impulses,  swarmed  to  the  surface. 
The  prolonged  physical  inactivity  of  a  body  active  by 
instinct  and  training  seemed  to  obliterate  itself  in  one 
passionate  and  unreasoning  outburst.  He  hated  this 
soft-handed  philanderer,  this  hunter  of  women.  He  even 
remembered  what  Hardy  had  once  said  to  him,  to  the 
effect  that  every  so-called  lady's  man  stood  mysteriously 
yet  eternally  kickable,  stood  always  despicable,  in  the 
eyes  of  other  men. 

And  then  the  reaction  came. 

It  came  about  the  time  that  Torrie,  standing  narrow- 
eyed  and  breathless,  finally  gasped  out :  "  Owen,  you'll 
kill  him!  ''  But  Owen,  it  was  plain,  was  swayed  by  no 
such  fears.  He  remembered  that  it  was  not  the  first  fist- 
fight  into  which  he  had  been  ushered  because  of  the 
woman  behind  him.  And  it  suddenly  struck  him  as  an 
absurd  and  unreasoning  and  bestial  sort  of  business. 
It  was  not  the  way,  he  knew,  in  which  any  problem  worthy 
the  name  had  ever  been  settled  or  ever  could  be  settled. 
It  merely  deferred  final  issues  and  intoxicated  with  its 
false  impression  of  triumph.  It  degraded  life  by  giving 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  205 

factitious  value  to  the  brutish  thump  of  fist  against  op 
posing  flesh.  And  he  had  known  enough  of  it. 

Storrow,  with  a  sudden  withering  of  hate  which  left 
him  listless  and  heavy-hearted,  picked  his  sodden  oppon 
ent  up  bodily  and  dragged  him  to  the  door.  Through 
that  door,  with  a  feeling  of  nausea  as  acutely  physical  as 
the  mat  de  mer  born  of  a  rolling  ship-deck,  he  flung  the 
man  with  the  blood-stained  face.  Then,  dreading  that 
Torrie's  keen  eye  should  behold  the  misery  and  meekness 
on  his  own  face,  he  fabricated  a  sustaining  appearance  of 
ferocity  and  strode  to  the  kitchenette  tap,  where  he  let  the 
cold  water  run  over  his  bruised  knuckles. 

"  And  I  guess  that  settles  Alan  Vibbard  for  us,"  he 
proclaimed  as  he  secretly  steadied  himself  against  the 
sink-edge. 

"  But,"  began  Torrie,  almost  in  a  whisper.  She  did 
not  continue.  Storrow,  however,  seemed  able  to  read 
her  thoughts. 

"If  he  comes  back,  I'll  do  the  same  thing  over  again," 
he  announced,  staring  at  the  white-faced  woman  to  see 
if  any  shadow  of  pity  lurked  in  her  eyes.  But  they  were 
barricaded  eyes,  enigmatic,  inscrutable,  no  longer  touched 
with  triumph. 

And  Alan  Vibbard  betrayed  no  intention  of  coming 
back.  Two  days  later  a  moving-van  backed  up  to  the 
curb  and  three  men,  of  whom  the  owner  was  not  one, 
stripped  the  adjoining  studio  of  its  hangings  and  fur 
niture  and  obfets  d'art.  In  the  hallway  Storrow  hap 
pened  to  pass  one  of  these  men  carrying  in  his  arms  a 
Russian  samovar. 


A 


CHAPTER    SEVENTEEN 

*«  j±  DECENT  book  isn't  written,  as  a  rule;  it's 
re-written,"  Chester  Hardy  had  announced 
in  extenuation  of  the  somewhat  sweeping 
changes  which  he  had  suggested  to  Storrow  after  going 
through  the  younger  author's  manuscript.  And  the 
truth  of  this  came  home  to  Storrow  as  he  did  what  he 
could  to  carry  out  these  suggestions.  Even  his  final  con 
viction  that  the  older  man  was  right  did  not  serve  to 
render  his  labour  any  less  difficult  and  any  less  lugubrious. 
Once  persuaded  that  the  issue  was  closed,  that  the  work 
was  complete,  its  reopening  took  on  the  nature  of  a  post 
mortem,  proving  almost  as  gloomy  a  bit  of  business  as 
the  re-opening  of  a  coffin.  He  was  tired  of  the  thing. 
The  last  of  his  enthusiasm  seemed  burned  out,  and  the 
puppets  of  his  creation,  to  his  jaundiced  eye,  took  on  the 
soiled  and  faded  aspect  of  counter-goods  too  frequently 
handled. 

But  he  worked  on  doggedly,  even  if  under  difficulties. 
It  began  to  tell  a  little,  both  on  nerves  and  temper,  for  he 
found  that  he  slept  now  only  after  a  more  and  more  sub 
stantial  "  night-cap."  He  also  found  Torrie's  incon 
sequential  comings  and  goings,  her  haphazard  callers,  her 
lighthearted  lack  of  order,  a  provocation  to  quick  and 
unreasoning  irritability.  And  this  in  turn  reacted  on 
Torrie,  who  complained  of  his  preoccupation,  of  the  lack 
of  comforts  in  the  studio,  of  the  housekeeping  hardships 
involved  in  such  quarters.  She  became  more  and  more 
silent,  more  and  more  self-contained. 

"If  we're  going  to  live  in  this  dump,"  she  announced 
one  morning  after  journeying  for  the  second  time  down 

206 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  207 

to  the  studio  of  a  wall-paper  artist  on  the  second  floor  to 
answer  telephone  calls,  "  I've  at  least  got  to  have  a 
'phone." 

"Can  we  afford  it?"  queried  Storrow,  looking  up 
from  his  type-writer,  for  only  the  night  before  they  had 
taken  up  the  matter  of  expenditure  and  her  husband  had 
awakened  to  the  disturbing  fact  that  he  had  been  living 
beyond  his  income.  He  had  remembered  the  even  more 
disturbing  fact  that  she  had  once  protested  that  he  would 
find  her  an  expensive  luxury. 

"  If  we  can't  stand  that,"  retorted  Torrie,  "  we  may 
as  well  give  up." 

"  Give  up  what  ?  "  asked  Storrow,  trying  to  keep  the 
note  of  alarm  out  of  his  voice. 

Torrie  shrugged  a  shoulder  as  she  walked  to  the  win 
dow. 

"  Give  up  pretending  to  be  civilized,"  she  replied  with 
an  obvious  effort  at  moderation.  But  her  cool  look  of 
disdain,  as  he  sat  staring  at  her  with  abstracted  eyes,  did 
not  escape  him. 

"  Yes,  I  think  we'd  better  have  a  telephone  put  in,"  he 
acknowledged  quietly,  as  he  turned  back  to  his  work. 

"  Surely  your  book  will  bring  you  in  something,"  ven 
tured  Torrie,  touched  by  afterthought  into  a  fleeting  mo 
ment  of  remorse. 

"  It  ought  at  least  to  pay  for  a  'phone,"  acknowledged 
Storrow,  with  his  attention  already  directed  towards  the 
page  in  front  of  him. 

"  Will  you  be  through  with  it  by  a  week  from  tomor 
row?  "  he  heard  her  asking. 

"  Yes  —  with  luck,"  he  answered.     "  Why?  " 

Torrie  slowly  struck  a  match  and  lighted  a  cigarette. 

"  Because  that  happens  to  be  my  birthday,  O  lord  and 
master,  and  Mattie  Crowder's  just  warned  me  the  bunch 
are  going  to  spring  a  surprise  party  on  us.  Will  you 
mind?" 

He  felt  that  there  was  a  veiled  note  of  mockery  in  her 


2o8  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

meekness.  But  it  was  so  veiled  that  it  left  him  touched 
with  doubt. 

"  Of  course  I  won't  mind,"  he  protested,  "  so  long  as  I 
can  be  one  of  the  party.  And  when  this  thing  is  cleared 
away,  Torrie,  we'll  have  more  chance  of  getting  a  little 
fun  out  of  life.  And,  speaking  of  that,  let's  go  over  to 
the  Delia  Robbia  Room  at  the  Vanderbilt  for  dinner  to 
night." 

But  Torrie  shook  her  head. 

"  I  couldn't  enjoy  it." 

"Why  not?"  he  demanded. 

"  The  answer  is  just  one  word,  Owen,  clothes! " 

This  seemed  to  puzzle  him. 

"  Why,  the  last  time  we  were  there  you  enjoyed  it. 
And  you  looked  pretty  good  to  me." 

Torrie  sat  on  the  wide  window-sill,  viewing  him  with 
meditative  eyes. 

"  I  may  have  pretended  to  enjoy  it,  but  I  didn't.  I 
don't  think  you  realize,  Owen,  what  clothes  mean  to  a 
woman." 

"  In  the  matter  of  keeping  her  warm?  "  suggested  Stor- 
row,  with  an  ironical  matter-of-factness  which  Torrie 
decided  to  ignore. 

"  That  may  be  all  right  for  the  woman  you're  writing 
about  there,"  she  said  with  a  head-nod  towards  his  manu 
script.  "  But  the  city  woman  doesn't  wear  clothes  to 
keep  warm.  She  wears  clothes  to  make  herself  attrac 
tive  and  show  that  she's  in  the  style.  And  that  word 
style,  my  dear,  is  the  biggest  word  in  the  American  lan 
guage.  It  stands  for  the  biggest  force  in  all  our  world. 
The  things  that  you  men  think  are  so  big,  the  things  you 
call  hunger  and  religion  and  honour  and  love,  aren't  even 
able  to  stand  up  beside  it,  in  the  long  run.  The  right  sort 
of  clothes  can  give  us  women  a  glory  we  can't  even  get  out 
of  love.  Knowing  we're  properly  dressed  can  give  us  a 
peace  of  soul  we  can't  possibly  get  out  of  religion." 

Storrow  sat  confronting  this  coldly  enunciated  truth, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  209 

wondering  if  men,  after  all,  were  destined  forever  to  mis 
judge  women,  were  prompted  eternally  to  attribute  to 
them  over-visionary  ideals. 

"  But  the  thing  is  so  absurdly  relative,"  he  contended. 
"  Take  the  Chippewa  squaw  as  I've  seen  her,  for  in 
stance.  A  red  blanket  and  a  string  of  glass  beads  can 
satisfy  her  soul  just  as  fully  as  a  Paquin  model  might  do 
for  you." 

"  And  she'd  satisfy  the  reservation  buck  in  that  get-up, 
but  she'd  never  satisfy  the  New  Yorker,"  countered  Tor- 
rie.  "  It's  really  a  matter  of  keeping  up  with  your  own 
circle.  And  it's  a  sort  of  warfare,  where  we  have  to 
fight  to  the  last  breath,  whether  we  want  to  or  not.  Look 
at  those  shops  along  Fifth  Avenue,  the  shops  for  which 
our  New  York  men  slave  and  work  their  lives  out !  Look 
at  the  working-girls  who  spend  their  wages  in  the  Sixth 
Avenue  imitations  of  those  shops.  And  look  at  the  stage- 
girls  who  drift  up  and  down  the  Rialto  rooting  for  work, 
togged  out  in  their  flashy  imitations  of  the  Sixth  Avenue 
imitations.  They're  all  battling,  every  one  of  them,  bat 
tling  to  keep  their  heads  above  water  in  our  awful  Ameri 
can  ocean  of  style." 

Storrow  had  no  difficulty  in  recalling  the  types.  His 
difficulty  lay  more  in  accepting  the  argument. 

"  But  those  Rialto  ladies,  as  I  remember  'em,"  he  re 
minded  his  wife,  "  usually  wear  a  diamond  or  two  about 
the  size  of  a  salt-cellar." 

"  Yes,  and  not  more  than  one  in  ten  of  them  the  real 
thing!  That's  the  pathetic  part  of  it,  the  never-ending 
need  for  pretence.  And  it's  just  as  pathetic  when  they 
are  real,  once  you  understand  what  they've  gone  without 
and  given  up  to  keep  that  solitary  stone.  For  stage- 
people,  you  see,  have  a  childish  belief  that  diamonds  are 
always  a  good  investment,  even  though  the  interest  on 
what  they  borrow  on  them  amounts  to  three  per  cent  a 
month,  when  it  comes  to  the  question  of  the  pawn-shop." 

Storrow,  before  this  parade  of  worldly  wisdom,  could 


210  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

afford  to  laugh.  It  was,  however,  a  slightly  acidified 
laugh. 

"  But  you'd  be  without  even  that  life-line,  wouldn't 
you  ?  "  he  told  her. 

"  How  do  you  mean?  " 

"  It's  just  occurred  to  me  that  I've  never  given  you  a 
jewel  in  your  life,"  he  explained. 

"  You  don't  need  to,"  Torrie  replied. 

"And  why  not?" 

"  I  guess  I've  got  about  all  I  care  for,"  was  her  reply. 

"  I've  never  seen  you  wear  them,"  he  retorted. 

"  I've  been  ashamed  to,"  was  her  counter-retort. 

"Why?"  he  demanded,  with  a  slight  stirring  of  un 
rest. 

"  I'd  look  too  much  like  your  Rialto  lady  with  the  salt 
cellar,"  was  the  almost  listless  response. 

"  Are  they  so  magnificent  ?  " 

Torrie,  with  a  slightly  curled  lip,  glanced  slowly  about 
the  crowded  studio. 

"  No;  but  they'd  seem  incongruous,"  was  her  none  too 
tranquillizing  reply.  Storrow  wheeled  about  in  his  chair, 
with  a  darker  impulse  creeping  across  the  horizon  of 
consciousness. 

"  Would  you  mind  letting  me  see  them  ?  "  he  said  with 
an  assumption  of  nonchalance. 

"  \Vhat's  the  use?"  was  Torrie's  lazily  intoned  inter 
rogation.  But  after  he  had  repeated  that  request  she 
slowly  crossed  the  room  to  where  her  steel-bound  theatri 
cal  trunk  stood  against  the  wall.  She  lifted  the  lid  of 
this,  and  from  a  canvas-covered  compartment  made  to 
receive  it,  took  out  a  japanned  tin  make-up  box.  Then 
from  behind  the  leather  backing  of  a  small  square  hand- 
mirror  she  extracted  a  key.  An  odour,  a  slightly  stale 
and  heavy  odour  of  cosmetics,  floated  up  from  the  trunk 
as  the  stooping  woman  lifted  out  first  one  and  then  an 
other  of  the  wide  canvas-covered  trays.  From  the  very 
bottom  of  that  chamber  of  faded  perfumes  and  memories 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  211 

she  took  out  a  second  tin  make-up  box  wrapped  in  a 
towel  blotched  with  sanguinary-looking  stains  of  lip- 
rouge.  She  carried  this  box  to  a  chair  and  sat  with  it  on 
her  knees  as  she  unlocked  it.  Storrow  caught  sight  of  a 
faded  package  of  papers,  a  photograph  or  two,  and  what 
looked  like  a  bundle  of  letters  tied  together  with  a  cherry- 
coloured  ribbon.  From  under  these  Torrie  lifted  out  a 
small  chamois  bag,  very  soiled.  She  closed  the  make-up 
box,  thrust  it  behind  her,  and  having  untied  the  bag, 
emptied  it  on  her  lap. 

Storrow  knew  little  about  precious  stones,  cared  little, 
with  his  defective  colour-sense,  for  their  beauty,  had 
thought  little  about  their  value.  But  it  struck  him,  as  he 
stared  down  at  that  array  of  rings  and  clasps  and  trinkets, 
as  an  unexpectedly  impressive  collection  of  ornaments. 
What  even  more  forcibly  struck  him,  however,  was  the 
seeming  carelessness  with  which  they  had  been  tossed  to 
gether,  with  a  dusting  of  face-powder  on  the  unburnished 
metal,  with  dirt  between  the  little  platinum  claws  that  bit 
at  the  edges  of  the  brilliants,  with  a  loose  garnet  that  had 
obviously  broken  away  from  its  setting.  And  this  re 
lieving  air  of  contempt  was  accentuated  by  Torrie's  in 
different  gesture  as  she  scrambled  them  about  in  the  little 
valley  of  drapery  between  her  knees.  Storrow  picked 
up  a  marquise  ring,  made  up  of  a  white  diamond  sur 
rounded  by  rubies. 

"  Wouldn't  you  call  that  rather  valuable?  "  he  inquired 
as  he  dusted  its  face.  Torrie,  with  an  indifferent  eye, 
glanced  up  at  it  for  a  moment. 

"  I'd  call  it  rather  cheap  and  showy,"  she  retorted  as 
she  made  an  effort  to  shove  the  loose  garnet  back  into  its 
bruised  setting. 

"  Where  did  it  come  from?  "  asked  Storrow,  trying  to 
make  the  question  a  casual  one. 

Torrie  laughed  at  the  solemnity  on  his  face. 

'  That,  Honey  Bun,  came  from  one  of  your  unsuc 
cessful  rivals,"  she  proclaimed  as  she  began  tossing  the 


212  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

jewellery  back  into  its  chamois  container.  But  his  brow 
remained  clouded,  for  in  his  world,  he  remembered, 
women  neither  accepted  nor  kept  jewels  in  this  light  and 
airy  fashion.  He  was  about  to  tell  her  so  when  he  was 
interrupted  by  a  caller  at  his  door,  a  solemn-eyed  and 
threadbare  girl  who  dispiritedly  inquired  if  he  used 
models. 

When  Storrow  turned  back  into  the  studio  Torrie  had 
replaced  the  trunk-trays  and  slammed  down  and  snapped 
shut  the  top-catches,  with  a  valedictory  slapping  together 
of  the  finger-tips,  to  brush  from  them  the  dust  with  which 
Time  powders  the  unused.  And  it  struck  Storrow,  as 
he  went  back  to  his  work,  that  little  could  now  be  gained 
by  reopening  the  issue. 

He  plunged  into  that  work  with  a  new  impatience  in 
his  blood,  oppressed  by  a  vague  ache  of  past  incom- 
petencies,  determined  to,  stand  no  longer  between  Torrie 
and  her  rehabilitation.  This  attitude  of  self-accusation 
had  a  tendency  to  leave  him  more  than  ever  submissive 
before  Torrie's  disturbingly  ramifying  preparations  for 
that  surprise-party  which  betrayed  scant  promise  of  pos 
sessing  the  slightest  element  of  the  unexpected. 

Two  days  before  that  event,  by  working  night  and  day, 
he  succeeded  in  completing  the  manuscript  which  to  his 
own  eyes  had  become  as  stale  and  colourless  as  a  circus- 
bill  on  a  December  barn-end.  The  casual  and  unemo 
tional  manner  in  which  it  was  carried  off  by  Chester 
Hardy,  the  next  day,  tended  to  accentuate  this  impression 
of  its  worthlessness.  Storrow,  alone  in  the  studio, 
weighed  down  in  spirit,  depressed  by  the  insidious  and 
distorting  toxins  of  mental  fatigue,  stared  at  the  new 
cut-glass  decanters  with  which  Torrie  had  decorated  his 
battered  buhl  table.  He  remembered,  as  he  studied  the 
rich  amber  frustum  made  by  the  light  striking  across  the 
contents  of  one  of  these  decanters,  that  there,  close  at 
hand,  lay  a  key  of  release  from  the  desolating  stagnation 
that  possessed  him.  He  reached  for  a  glass,  filled  it  half 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

full,  and  hissed  into  it  a  spurt  or  two  from  one  of  the 
seltzer-siphons. 

Having  drunk  this  off,  he  sat  down,  morosely  awaiting 
the  desired  effect.  Then,  finding  not  the  slightest  sign 
of  exhilaration  manifesting  itself,  he  repeated  the  opera 
tion.  This  resulted  in  a  vague  feeling  of  uplift,  touched 
with  recklessness.  Deciding  to  convert  that  feeling  into 
something  more  definite,  he  took  still  another  drink. 
After  that  he  no  longer  cared  about  either  his  moods  or 
his  movements. 

When  Torrie  returned  to  the  studio  that  night  she 
stopped  short  with  her  parcels,  startled  by  the  figure  that 
he  presented. 

"  Owen !  "  she  called  out  sharply. 

His  answer  was  as  care-free  as  it  was  inarticulate. 
Slowly  the  look  of  anxiety  ebbed  out  of  her  eyes.  She 
could  even  afford  to  laugh  a  little  as  she  threw  aside  her 
hat  and  gloves. 

"But  where  did  you  get  it?"  she  demanded  with  a 
humorous  inspection  of  him  at  closer  range. 

"God  id  all  by  m'she'f!"  proudly  but  heavily  an 
nounced  the  swaying  figure  before  her.  She  backed  her 
husband  into  a  chair,  and  stood  looking  down  at  him. 

"  Aren't  you  just  a  day  or  two  too  early  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Th'  early  bird  casshes  th'  worm,"  he  explained  with 
a  prodigious  conviction  of  wisdom.  The  enormity  of 
that  wisdom  so  impressed  him,  in  fact,  that  he  solemnly 
reiterated  the  aphorism.  If,  through  those  fogs  of  in- 
ebriacy,  he  looked  for  some  reproof  from  her,  he  was 
muddily  perplexed  by  the  absence  of  all  rancour  on  her 
part. 

"  I  don't  think  you  can  ever  afford  to  preach  to  me, 
after  this,"  she  said  to  him  as  she  buttoned  up  the  jacket 
of  his  pyjamas.  "  I  was  never  in  that  condition  in  my 
life." 

He  slept  heavily  and  late  the  next  morning.  Torrie, 
in  fact,  was  up  and  dressed  and  had  the  studio  put  to 


214  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

rights  before  he  so  much  as  stirred.     Nor  did  he  stir, 
an  hour  later,  when  a  knock  sounded  on  the  door. 

Torrie,  answering  that  knock,  confronted  Chester 
Hardy  asking  for  her  husband. 

"  He's  in,"  she  acknowledged  after  a  moment  of  hesi 
tation,  "  but  I'm  afraid  you  can't  see  him." 

"  He's  not  ill,  is  he?  "  inquired  the  caller,  remembering 
the  past  weeks  of  overwork  which  seemed  to  have  taken 
not  a  little  of  the  spring  out  of  Storrow's  step. 

"  No,  he's  not  ill,"  was  Torrie's  deliberate  reply. 
"  But  he  got  very  drunk  last  night  and  he  hasn't  slept  it 
off  yet." 

She  met  Hardy's  stare  with  an  enigmatic  stare  that 
seemed  almost  one  of  triumph.  It  was  the  man  who 
eventually  lowered  his  eyes. 

"  Well,  when  he's  in  a  condition  to  understand  the 
message,  will  you  explain  to  him  that  I  had  Arthur 
Scranton  personally  read  his  manuscript  at  once.  Scran- 
ton's  house  has  accepted  it  for  publication.  He  'phoned 
me  about  it  this  morning  and  gave  me  a  record  decision. 
And  I  rather  felt  that  you'd  both  want  to  hear  the  good 
news." 

Torrie  looked  up  at  him,  humbled  in  spite  of  herself. 

"  That  is  good  news,"  she  murmured. 

"  And  it  comes,  as  I  remember  it,  on  your  birthday," 
added  the  man  with  the  uncomfortably  penetrating  eyes. 

"  It's  the  finest  birthday  gift  that  you  could  have 
brought  to  me,"  she  said  without  looking  up. 

"  It  will  bring  a  thousand  dollars,  in  advance  royal 
ties,"  Hardy  coldly  announced. 

"  I  wasn't  thinking  of  that  part  of  it,"  was  Torrie's 
quick  retort. 

"  But  it's  a  part,"  observed  Hardy,  noting  the  faint 
flush  that  crept  up  to  her  forehead,  "  that  can't  afford  to 
be  overlooked.  I  had  another  message  for  your  husband, 
but  it  can  wait." 

Torrie,  when  he  had  gone,  sat  in  the  faded  green  arm- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  215 

chair  deep  in  thought.  Then,  emerging  from  her  ab 
straction,  she  made  coffee  and  prepared  breakfast  with 
exceptional  care.  There  was  a  tray,  studiously  laid, 
awaiting  Storrow  when  he  awakened.  He  sat  up  and 
inspected  it  with  a  lack-lustre  eye. 

"Feel  better,   Honey?"  Torrie  casually  inquired. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  sour  with  self-hate. 

"  Can  you  eat  something?  "  was  her  next  query.  The 
man  on  the  bed  shook  his  head  from  side  to  side.  He 
lifted  his  hands  and  pressed  them  against  his  temples. 
But  that  definite  and  decipherable  pain,  he  felt,  was  more 
endurable  than  the  dull  ache  of  shame  that  weighed  on 
his  heart.  He  remembered  the  Dionysian  revels  at 
Brownie  Tell's  bal  masque,  the  revels  he  had  railed  at. 
He  remembered  the  historic  night  at  The  Blacton.  He 
thought  of  Pannie  Atwell  and  her  bubble-water  friends 
at  Krebbler's  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning.  He  had 
fallen  as  low  as  any  of  them.  He  was  one  of  them  now, 
stamped  with  the  same  brand,  squeezed  into  the  same 
mould. 

"  Would  you  like  to  hear  some  good  news?  "  demanded 
Torrie,  disturbed  by  the  misery  on  his  face.  He  turned 
and  regarded  her  with  bloodshot  eyes,  with  an  expression 
dangerously  akin  to  distaste  on  his  face.  There  was  no 
news  just  then,  he  felt,  that  could  be  good  news.  He 
stared  at  his  cooling  breakfast,  heavily  conscious  of  the 
solicitude  that  had  prompted  its  preparation.  Mingled 
with  his  shame  was  a  newer  note  of  contrition,  contri 
tion  for  service  unrecognized. 

"  What  news  ?  "  he  asked,  with  an  effort. 

"  The  Scrantons  are  going  to  publish  your  novel,"  she 
told  him,  waiting  in  vain  for  some  visible  reaction  to  that 
announcement. 

"  Who  told  you  that?  "  he  finally  asked. 

"  Hardy  came  here  this  morning,  especially  to  let  you 
know." 

A  new  light  came  into  the  dulled  eyes  regarding  her. 


216  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"And  you  explained  why  he  couldn't  see  me?"  de 
manded  Storrow. 

Torrie  hesitated. 

"  I  told  him  the  truth,"  she  finally  admitted.  Yet  she 
was  hardly  prepared  for  the  utter  misery  that  over-spread 
his  face. 

"  Then  he  understands  now  that  I'm  one  of  you," 
ejaculated  the  unhappy  man  on  the  disordered  bed.  Tor 
rie  flinched  a  little  at  the  reproach  in  that  exclamation. 

"  Why  should  you  be  so  biggety-feeling,  just  because 
you've  sold  a  book?  "  she  coolly  inquired.  "  And  if  be 
ing  in  the  state  you  are  means  being  one  of  us,  I  scarcely 
need  to  remind  you  that  you  began  it  pretty  early  in  the 
game.  You  were  that  way  about  the  first  night  I  ever 
saw  you,  if  I  remember  correctly." 

"  Yes,  I  began  it  pretty  early  in  the  game,"  echoed  the 
unhappy  Storrow,  supine  in  his  utter  self-abasement. 
And  he  lay  there  murmuring  "  O  God,  O  God !  "  in  a 
manner  so  disagreeably  impressive  to  his  wife  that  she 
left  his  side  and  busied  herself  with  purely  gratuitous 
tasks  about  the  room. 

He  got  out  of  bed  and  took  a  cold  bath,  a  rite  which 
under  ordinary  circumstances  seldom  failed  to  lure  back 
his  vanished  sense  of  well-being.  But  in  this  case  it  only 
accentuated  the  sharp  and  throbbing  pressure  about  his 
temples.  So  he  mixed  himself  a  "  John  Collins,"  after 
the  manner  of  the  circle  of  which  he  had  become  so  un 
wittingly  a  member,  and  finding  a  modified  relief  from 
the  lash  of  this  chilled  but  warming  liquid,  in  half  an  hour 
repeated  the  treatment.  Throughout  the  day,  in  fact,  he 
seemed  set  on  keeping  Intelligence  from  emerging  from 
its  fumey  lair.  He  seemed  intent  on  ushering  After 
thought  from  the  threshold  of  consciousness.  Since  it 
hurt  him  to  think,  he  decided  to  do  away  with  thinking. 
So  he  dulled  his  mind  with  alcohol,  remaining  in  a  mild 
anaesthesia  which  mounted  almost  to  exhilaration  as 
evening  approached. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  217 

"  What's  got  into  you,  anyway?  "  demanded  his  wife, 
with  her  first  touch  of  apprehension  at  a  mood  which  she 
could  not  comprehend. 

"  The  spirit  of  the  city,"  he  retorted  with  a  curt  laugh. 

"  Wouldn't  spirits  be  nearer  the  mark?  "  asked  Torrie 
as  she  glanced  at  a  half -empty  decanter. 

"  Well,  for  once  I'm  going  to  be  one  of  you," 
he  explained  with  reckless  levity,  though  beneath 
that  levity  Torrie  could  detect  a  disturbing  touch  of 
mockery. 

Yet  he  most  indisputably  made  himself  one  of  the 
circle  on  that  night  of  nights.  He  seemed  intent  on 
demonstrating  to  the  light-hearted  throng  that  came  strag 
gling  up  to  the  studio  that  he  was  no  longer  a  kill-joy  in 
their  midst,  that  he  could  be  a  good  fellow  with  the  best 
of  them.  He  greeted  stage-girls  still  in  their  make-up 
with  noisy  arid  offhanded  camaraderie.  He  shook  hands 
fraternally  with  unknown  men  in  evening  dress,  men 
whose  shirt-fronts  stood  out  of  the  shadows  like  tomb 
stones.  He  entered  gaily  into  the  long  and  vociferous 
arguments  as  to  the  proper  mixing  of  drinks,  as  to  the 
relative  merits  of  rye  and  Scotch,  as  to  the  correct  kind 
of  Vermouth  for  certain  cocktails,  and  as  to  the  proper 
recipes  for  whiskey  slings  and  cobblers  and  milk  punches 
and  mint  juleps.  When  no  fresh  strawberries  were  in 
evidence  for  the  latter,  a  pale  youth  in  a  fur-lined  over 
coat  called  loudly  for  his  chauffeur  and  proclaimed  that 
he  would  find  strawberries  for  that  party,  even  if  he  had 
to  jimmy  his  way  into  Charles'  and  Hicks'  or  ransack 
the  last  ice-box  in  the  Biltmore  and  the  Plaza.  After  he 
had  left  on  this  beneficent  crusade,  amid  cheers,  Storrow 
found  himself  tutoring  a  stout  lady,  in  extreme  decollete, 
through  the  intricate  steps  of  an  Indian  ghost-dance.  He 
also  found  himself,  a  little  later,  rhapsodically  responding 
to  Modrynski's  toast  to  Torrie,  to  Torrie  Throssel,  "  and 
well-named,  my  friends,  for  as  I  remember  it  the  Scotch 
throssil  is  a  contrivance  for  the  twisting  up  of  threads, 


2i8  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

and  here  is  a  Throssel  who  twists  np  our  heart-strings 
the  moment  we  bask  in  the  light  of  her  eyes!  " 

Storrow  replied  to  that  toast,  without  being  fully  con 
scious  of  what  he  was  saying.  Even  the  cheers  and  the 
hand-clappings  came  to  him  thinly,  as  though  travelling 
over  great  wastes  of  distance.  But  that  impression  was 
in  turn  obliterated  by  the  intrusion  of  a  tom-tom  and  a 
Scotch  bag-pipe  commandeered  from  a  neighbouring 
studio,  to  the  music  of  which  a  number  of  barbaric  dances 
were  improvised.  Then  Brownie  King's  efforts  to  do  a 
life-size  portrait  on  the  wall,  with  a  burnt  champagne- 
cork,  prompted  Storrow  to  attempt  a  portrait-bust  of 
Mattie  Crowder,  the  medium  for  the  same  being  a  pound 
of  butter  from  the  kitchenette  ice-box.  But  this  medium, 
refusing  to  hold  its  line  in  the  warm  room,  was  taken 
up  bodily  and  impressed  against  Mattie's  screaming  face, 
in  an  even  more  futile  effort  to  achieve  a  life-mask. 

It  lasted  until  well  towards  morning,  that  swirling  and 
shouting  revel,  and  always  Storrow  seemed  to  be  in  the 
thick  of  it.  But  always,  at  the  same  time,  deep  within 
the  core  of  consciousness  a  lonely  sentinel  seemed  to  pace 
a  lonely  rampart,  a  sentinel  with  a  voice  which  kept  mut 
tering  :  "  This  is  folly.  This  is  madness  and  empti 
ness.  And  things  such  as  this  may  be,  but  they  must 
never  be  again.  Never  —  never  again !  " 

It  was  not  until  the  crowd  had  thinned  a  little  that  Stor 
row  found  himself  sitting  on  the  overturned  buhl  table, 
staring  solemnly  but  unsteadily  into  the  half-satyric  face 
of  Pannie  Atwill. 

"  Pannie,  I'm  as  drunk  as  a  lord,"  he  finally  and  slowly 
averred. 

"  You  don't  need  to  advertise  that!  "  announced  Pan 
nie  writh  her  quiet  laugh. 

"  But  it's  the  last  time,"  contended  Storrow,  putting  his 
shoulders  back,  "  the  last  time." 

"  Tell  that  to  S\veeney,"  remarked  the  unimpressed 
girl  in  front  of  him.  Then  she  turned  and  swept  him 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  219 

with  her  coolly  appraising  eye.  "  And  I'm  not  so  sure 
but  what  it'll  do  you  good.  Perhaps  it'll  wash  a  little  of 
the  starch  out  of  your  make-up,  you  frozen-necked 
Canuck!" 

Storrow  sat  worrying  over  that  light-hearted  remark, 
worrying  over  it  even  more  than  over  his  condition. 
Would  he  come  to  see  things  in  that  light?  Would  the 
ability  to  decide  what  was  right  or  wrong  slip  away  from 
him?  Would  he,  too,  lose  his  power  of  judging,  of  be 
ing  able  to  recognize  what  was  evil  and  cramping  and 
what  was  strengthening  and  liberating?  In  that  case  he 
could  see,  muddled  as  he  was,  that  he  should  indeed  have 
become  one  of  them.  Then  it  struck  him  as  odd  that  he 
should  worry  at  all.  Wine,  he  had  always  heard,  left 
men  light-hearted  and  care-free.  Yet  in  his  case  he  was 
being  duped.  It  was  not  leaving  him  joyous  at  heart. 
It  was  merely  giving  him  a  mask  of  merriment,  a  mask 
behind  which  misery  could  still  lurk.  When  he  asked 
himself  the  reason  for  this,  he  was  unable  to  answer. 
But  capriciously  and  suddenly  there  came  to  him  the 
memory  of  pine-clad  hills  sharp  against  ruddy  sunsets,  of 
rustling  valleys  of  bracken  filled  with  the  scent  of  the 
balsam,  of  water  lapping  against  pebbly  shores  and  over 
arching  skies  of  serene  and  brooding  azure. 

He  looked  up,  dizzily,  staring  abstractedly  before  him 
as  though  the  gold-green  vistas  of  a  robin-haunted  twi 
light  were  to  be  visioned  there.  Instead,  he  saw  a  disor 
dered  room  still  blue-grey  with  tobacco-smoke,  a  litter  of 
glasses  and  unclean  dishes,  a  welter  of  sullen  shadow  and 
light,  and  two  vaguely  defined  figures  which  lost  their 
remoteness  as  he  stared  at  them.  One  of  these  figures, 
he  saw,  was  Torrie.  He  could  see  the  pearly  lustre  of  the 
milk-white  skin  along  one  shoulder,  cut  by  the  black- 
velvet  shoulder-strap  of  her  gown.  The  other  figure  was 
Modrynski's,  so  tall  and  statue-like  in  his  long-caped 
great-coat  that  he  stood  by  the  open  door  strangely  like  a 
gaunt  and  hooded  figure  of  Death.  Storrow,  viewing 


220  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

them  with  a  singularly  detached  mind,  saw  Modrynski 
slowly  turn  about  and  stoop  down,  with  the  black  cape 
falling  about  his  shoulders  in  almost  a  monk-like  effect. 
He  saw  the  lined  and  yellow  face  bend  still  lower  and 
thrust  itself  into  the  soft  hollow  of  Torrie's  neck. 

It  was  as  startling  as  though  he  had  beheld  her  kissed 
on  the  bare  flesh  by  the  lips  of  Death.  He  expected  al 
most  to  hear  the  rattle  of  bones  as  he  perceived  that  an 
tique,  stooping  frame  shake  with  its  senile  palsy  accentu 
ated  by  some  momentary  emotion.  But  it  was  too  odious 
even  to  contemplate. 

For  the  second  time  Storrow  let  his  head  sink  into  his 
hands,  submerged  with  an  immense  new  misery  of  be 
trayal.  He  was  being  duped  that  night,  he  felt,  for  the 
second  time,  irreparably,  unfathomably  duped.  Yet  it 
amazed  him  to  find  that  he  was  incapable  of  action,  that 
he  could  contemplate  a  situation  undermining  the  solidest 
timbers  of  his  happiness  and  make  no  effort  to  combat  it. 
He  sat  without  moving,  no  longer  conscious  of  even  the 
throbbing  ache  in  his  temples,  absorbing  to  the  full  a 
shock  which  could  leave  him  more  stupified  than  alcohol. 

It  was  not  until  Torrie  closed  the  studio-door  and 
crossed  the  room  that  he  made  an  effort  to  get  to  his 
feet. 

"  I  saw  it,"  he  said  as  he  confronted  her. 

"Saw  what?"  she  sharply  demanded,  appraising  his 
none  too  steady  posture  with  an  eye  in  which  burned  both 
antagonism  and  disdain.  It  was  an  unnaturally  bright 
eye,  made  almost  luminous  by  the  extraordinary  white 
ness  of  her  face.  And  even  in  that  inapposite  moment 
Storrow  was  stung  sharply  by  the  sense  of  her  beauty. 

"  You  and  Modrynski,"  he  replied,  averse  even  to  put 
ting  into  words  a  thing  still  too  odious  for  expression. 

"  What  about  me  and  Modrynski  ?  "  she  challenged. 

"  You  know  as  well  as  I  do,"  he  counter-challenged, 
awakening  to  the  fact  that  she  herself  was  none  too  steady 
on  her  feet. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  221 

"  Know  what?  "  she  insisted,  apparently  intent  on  mak 
ing  him  phrase  what  he  was  so  reluctant  to  drag  out  into 
the  open.  He  turned  away  from  her  and  stared  at  the 
cast  of  his  Sentinel  Wolf.  About  the  lean  jaw  of  that 
animal  some  one  had  snapped  a  girl's  garter  with  a  gold 
buckle.  It  stood  there,  like  a  gaily  ornamented  muzzle. 
Around  the  rough  neck  had  also  been  tied  a  strand  of 
wide  pink  ribbon.  It  was  more  than  ludicrous;  it  was 
pathetic. 

"Know  what?"  his  wife  was  reiterating. 

"  I'm  beginning  to  know  you,"  he  equivocated,  scarcely 
finding  the  courage  to  meet  her  gaze. 

"Are  you?"  she  murmured  with  half-closed  eyes. 
"And  what  about  it?" 

"That's  just  what  I've  been  wondering:  what  about 
it  ?  "  he  repeated,  much  more  lucidly  than  she  must  have 
expected,  for  she  turned  on  him  again  with  a  quick  and 
defensive  movement  of  impatience. 

"  You'd  better  get  sober  before  you  start  saying  such 
utterly  ridiculous  things,"  she  observed,  with  an  apprecia 
tive  glance  over  his  person. 

"  I  am  sober." 

"  You  look  it,"  she  said  with  a  laugh. 

He  turned  and  walked  away  from  her,  confounded  by 
a  sense  of  frustration,  oppressed  by  the  feeling  of  some 
vast  issue  left  clouded  and  inconsequential.  And  as  he 
gulped  down  a  glass  of  ice- water  and  Torrie  on  the  other 
side  of  the  room  with  a  parade  of  unconcern  began  to 
make  ready  for  bed,  he  wished  with  all  the  strength  of 
his  being  that  for  a  time  at  least  he  might  claim  the  luxury 
of  solitude,  the  consoling  dignity  of  at  least  sleeping 
alone. 

If  his  wife  in  any  way  shared  that  feeling  she  did  not 
give  the  thought  utterance.  Before  he  was  quite  aware 
of  it,  in  fact,  she  was  lying  asleep,  or  in  a  pretence  of 
sleep.  And  when,  an  hour  later,  he  placed  himself 
wearily  on  the  same  bed  she  neither  stirred  nor  moved. 


222  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

Yet  when  he  wakened  several  hours  later,  with  the  high 
light  of  noonday  flooding  the  studio,  he  found  himself 
with  his  right  arm  thrown  over  her  hot  bare  shoulder 
and  the  soft  curve  of  her  back  lying  in  its  habitual  nestling 
posture  close  in  against  his  body.  He  saw,  to  his  relief, 
that  she  was  still  sleeping  heavily.  So  quietly  and  slowly, 
and  almost  with  a  sense  of  shame,  he  withdrew  his  arm 
from  the  slowly  rising  and  falling  flesh  on  which  it  was 
cushioned.  Then  inch  by  inch  he  moved  over  to  his  own 
side  of  the  bed. 


CHAPTER   EIGHTEEN 

STORROW  was  roused  out  of  his  reverie  by  the 
shrill  of  the  telephone-bell.  He  glanced  at  Tor- 
rie,  to  see  if  it  had  awakened  her,  and  then  slipped 
quietly  out  of  bed.  He  found  that  it  was  Chester  Hardy 
calling  him. 

"  There's  something  you  don't  know,  I'm  afraid,  and 
I  feel  that  you  ought  to  be  told,"  said  the  voice  over  its 
space-annihilating  thread  of  metal. 

"  What  is  it?  "  asked  Storrow,  with  a  quick  tightening 
of  the  throat  as  his  thoughts  involuntarily  flew  back  to 
the  woman  so  serenely  asleep  on  the  bed  behind  him. 
What  new  humiliation,  he  wondered,  was  to  be  flung  in 
his  face.  But  he  soon  found  any  apprehension  of  that 
nature  to  be  groundless. 

"  Have  you  had  any  word  from  Charlotte  Kirkner  ?  " 
Hardy  was  asking  him. 

"  None  whatever." 

"  I  was  afraid  not.  Yet  a  couple  of  days  ago  a  tele 
gram  was  sent  to  you,  a  telegram  " — 

"  That  telegram  never  reached  me,"  cut  in  Storrow,  re 
calling  that  this  was  not  the  first  message  from  the  quar 
ter  in  question  which  had  been  held  up  in  transit.  He 
found  the  smell  of  the  wine-glasses  crowded  about  the 
desk  where  he  sat  more  than  ever  offensive. 

"  It  was  a  telegram,  I'm  sorry  to  say,  announcing  the 
death  of  Mrs.  Kirkner  at  Asheville,"  explained  the  un- 
participating  voice  over  the  wire. 

Storrow  sat  silent  for  a  moment  or  two.  It  was  not 
the  news  that  was  so  much  a  shock  to  him,  it  was  more 
the  discovery  that  his  world  could  have  been  such  a  nar- 

223 


224  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

rowly  preoccupied  one,  such  a  deadeningly  self -immuring 
one. 

"  Where  is  Charlotte  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  She  went  out  to  Swansea  yesterday  afternoon,  right 
after  the  service,"  explained  Hardy. 

"  The  service  ?  "  repeated  Storrow. 

"  The  funeral  service,"  Hardy  quietly  amended. 
"  And  I'm  afraid  she  feels  very  much  alone  there." 

Still  again  a  moment  of  silence  came  in  the  talk. 

"  Perhaps  she  would  prefer  being  that  way,  under  the 
circumstances,"  Storrow  said,  heavy  with  a  vague  misery 
which  was  not  untouched  with  self-hate. 

"  She  is  a  wonderful  girl,  Owen,"  explained  Hardy,  for 
the  first  time  using  the  other's  Christian  name  as  he  as 
cended  to  a  new  earnestness  of  note,  "  and  I  know  that 
she  is  very  fond  of  you,  ineradicably  fond  of  you." 

"  Do  you  mean  I  could  still  be  of  any  possible  service 
to  her?"  asked  the  none  too  happy  Storrow,  pushing 
awray  the  glasses  from  which  the  smell  of  stale  liquor  rose 
in  the  air  about  him. 

"  I  think  you  could,"  said  the  kindly  and  patient  voice 
which  even  the  transferring  metal  failed  to  rob  of  its 
timbre. 

"  I'll  go  right  out  to  her,"  announced  Storrow  after 
one  short  moment  of  hesitation. 

He  made  his  preparations  quietly,  puzzled  by  the  sus 
tained  sense  of  relief  which  came  from  his  discovery  that 
Torrie  could  sleep  through  it  all.  Yet  it  seemed  clearer 
as  he  stood  with  his  bag  in  his  hand  staring  down  at  her 
sleeping  face.  That  face,  he  could  see,  was  more  full- 
blooded  than  usual,  and  slightly  swollen  about  the  lips 
and  nostrils.  In  the  thick  and  heavy  mat  of  the  tangled 
hair  still  lurked  a  faint  odour  of  smoke  and  winy  emana 
tions.  About  the  mouth,  unnaturally  heavy  with  its  still 
distended  labial  blood-vessels,  he  could  see  a  faint  mark 
ing  of  uraemic  deposit.  Under  conditions  such  as  those, 
he  remembered,  most  faces  would  have  looked  sottish, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  225 

would  have  proved  repellent.  But  he  could  still  decipher 
on  that  sleeping  face  an  orchid-like  and  exotic  beauty. 
And  the  consciousness  of  this  disturbed  him  profoundly. 
It  seemed  to  confound  the  future  for  him,  to  leave  more 
complicated  the  paths  that  awaited  his  feet,  to  cast  across 
what  should  have  been  wide  vistas  of  contempt  a  wistful 
overtone  of  adoration,  of  adoration  touched  with  desire. 
And  he  was  foolishly  grateful  for  the  chance  of  escaping 
from  the  studio,  with  all  its  residual  aspects  and  odours 
of  vanished  merriments,  while  Torrie  slept  on  unmindful 
of  the  early  afternoon  sunlight  slanting  through  the  sky 
light  with  its  undrawn  shadow-cloth. 

This  sense  of  escape,  of  suddenly  acquired  breathing- 
space,  remained  with  him  even  after  he  had  dispatched 
what  impressed  him  as  an  over-long  and  inadequate  tele 
gram  to  Charlotte  Kirkner  and  had  settled  himself  in 
the  train  for  Swansea-On-The-Sound.  He  forgot  the 
weariness  which  an  hour  before  had  seemed  anchored 
in  his  very  bones.  It  was  a  long  time,  he  remembered, 
since  he  had  been  in  the  country.  All  the  earlier  years 
of  his  life  had  been  linked  with  the  open.  He  was,  in  a 
way,  a  son  of  the  wilderness.  Life,  for  him,  had  never 
really  struck  root  through  the  concrete  that  floored  the 
city  of  his  adoption.  And  the  larger  sanities  of  sun  and 
wind  and  hilltop  spaciousness  would  always  be  essential 
to  him,  would  always  be  calling  to  him. 

It  was  a  crystalline  February-end  afternoon  of  open 
sunlight,  with  the  earth  bald  of  ice  and  snow.  Once  the 
raw  and  ugly  husk  of  the  city's  suburbs  had  been  left 
well  behind  he  found  himself  confronted  by  umber  hills 
mottled  with  pale  green  that  stretched  away  to  an  opal 
skyline,  umber  hills  with  only  the  occasional  monstrosity 
of  gaudy-hued  sign-boards  to  remind  one  of  the  city  ad 
jacent.  There  was  a  cool  and  mellow  richness  in  the 
mellow  tones  of  the  broken  swamplands,  and  already  the 
wintry  willows  wore  a  crown  of  vivid  yellow.  There 
was  an  almost  bewildering  wash  of  light  above  the  tangled 


226  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

laceries  of  the  tree-tops.  And  always  before  him  was  a 
suave  and  receding  sky,  suggestive  of  distances  infinitely 
remote,  as  disquieting  and  provocative  as  the  silver- 
sweet  challenge  of  ever  vanishing  and  invisible  bugles. 
It  came  fully  home  to  him,  for  the  first  time  in  months, 
that  he  had  been  missing  something  both  stabilizing  and 
momentous  out  of  life. 

When  Storrow  alighted  at  Swansea  he  found  Charlotte 
awaiting  him,  flanked  by  what  he  took  to  be  a  footman 
in  uniform,  with  a  fur-lined  rug  draped  over  one  arm, 
and  a  chauffeur  equally  statuesque.  But  it  was  a  Char 
lotte  somewhat  different  to  the  Charlotte  he  had  so  re 
cently  and  so  laboriously  fabricated  in  his  own  mind. 
She  was  both  less  subdued  and  less  funereal-looking  than 
he  had  expected.  She  stood  before  him,  unmistakably  in 
the  sombre  black  of  full  mourning,  but  with  a  quiet-eyed 
self-possession  which  did  something  more  than  merely 
proclaim  that  the  last  of  her  girlishness  was  gone.  It 
served  also  as  an  announcement  that  she  in  her  own  way 
had  known  sorrow  and  in  her  own  way  had  risen  superior 
to  it.  There  was,  in  fact,  no  tremor  in  her  voice  as  she 
shook  hands  with  him  and  thanked  him  for  coming. 

"  Shall  we  send  the  car  home,"  she  asked  in  her  clear 
and  reedy  voice,  "  and  walk  back  across  the  hills?  " 

"  Yes,  let's  walk  back,"  Storrow  said  to  her.  His  eyes 
followed  her  as  she  turned  to  speak  to  the  chauffeur  in 
the  fur-trimmed  service  coat.  If  the  dark  dress  under 
the  equally  dark  furs  was  unmistakably  simple,  it  was 
the  simplicity  of  distinction,  an  ordered  and  doubly  art 
ful  austerity  which  resulted  in  a  final  impression  of  rich 
ness.  He  noticed,  as  the  footman  took  possession  of  his 
bag,  that  there  seemed  imposed  upon  her  earlier  air  of 
shell-pink  fragility  an  overtone  of  maturity  touched  with 
patience.  He  wondered  if  this  arose  from  the  fact  that 
even  against  the  dark  furs  her  face  carried  a  tint  of  pale 
bronze,  an  almost  athletic-like  darkening  of  pigment  sug 
gestive  of  wind  and  open  air. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  227 

She  smiled  when  he  spoke  of  this  as  they  struck  out 
along  the  hard  white  road  that  wound  hillward  before 
them. 

"  That's  nothing  but  sunburn,"  she  said,  colouring  a 
little.  They  walked  on  for  several  minutes  before  she 
spoke  again.  "  You  see,  Owen,  I  had  to  take  myself  in 
hand,  down  there  at  Asheville.  I  knew  all  along  exactly 
what  was  ahead  of  me,  and  I  had  a  feeling  that  I  ought 
to  organize  for  it." 

Storrow  stopped  short. 

"  Wasn't  it  Chester  Hardy  first  used  that  word  to 
you?  "  he  demanded. 

"  I  think  he  did  say  something  like  that,"  admitted 
Charlotte,  colouring  still  again.  "  But  I  had  a  problem 
or  two  to  think  out  for  myself.  And  I  felt,  sometimes, 
that  I  was  going  to  pieces.  I  knew  I  had  to  get  a  grip 
on  myself.  So  I  adopted  poor  old  Spencer's  advice  about 
our  first  duty  to  ourselves  consisting  in  being  a  healthy 
animal.  I  rode  every  day,  even  when  I  didn't  want  to. 
I  golfed  and  walked,  and  kept  busy,  to  keep  from  think- 
ing/' 

"  And  your  mother  ?  "  began  Storrow. 

"  There  was  so  little  to  do,  there,"  explained  the  girl 
at  Storrow's  side,  with  a  quietness  which  proved  a  sur 
prise  to  him.  "  She  was  kept  under  morphine,  for  the 
last  two  months." 

"Then  it  was  hopeless,  that  long?"  he  inadequately 
asked. 

"  It  was  always  hopeless,"  was  the  quiet-toned  re 
sponse.  And  they  walked  on  in  silence  again,  for  many 
minutes. 

"  And  I  was  only  making  everything  harder,"  said 
Storrow,  breaking  the  silence. 

"  Mother  thought  more  of  you  than  you  imagine," 
went  on  the  girl,  as  though  intent  on  ignoring  that  cry 
of  protest.  "  She  has  given  you  the  Lake  Erie  farm." 


228  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  But  I  don't  want  the  Lake  Erie  farm,"  asserted  the 
other. 

"  Then  I'm  afraid  you'll  have  to  take  it  against  your 
will.  Legally,  in  fact,  it's  already  yours." 

"  How  do  you  mean,  legally?  " 

"  It  was  mentioned  in  the  will.  And,  as  you  know,  it 
ought  to  have  been  your  mother's,  from  the  first." 

"  But  I'd  rather  not  talk  about  those  things  —  now,  of 
all  times." 

Charlotte  smiled  with  a  wintry  sort  of  wistfulness. 

"  Surely,  Owen,  you  and  I  don't  need  to  be  stupid  and 
conventional.  The  sting  has  gone  out  of  all  that,  and 
out  of  other  things  too."  When  she  spoke  again,  out  of 
the  silence  that  ensued,  it  was  on  an  altogether  different 
subject.  "  I'm  so  glad  about  your  book." 

"Who  told  you?" 

"  Chester  Hardy.  And  it's  wonderful  to  think  that 
you've  succeeded  in  that  first  big  effort." 

"  It's  not  so  wonderful,  if  you  bear  in  mind  how  Hardy 
helped  me,"  acknowledged  Storrow. 

They  were  on  the  crest  of  a  hill,  by  this  time,  and  they 
stopped  instinctively,  to  stare  into  the  distance  about 
them.  From  the  windows  of  villas  nestling  low  in  the 
valley  the  sunlight  flashed  ruddily  back  at  them,  jewelling 
the  sombre  green  slopes  with  fire.  In  the  distance  were 
the  shouldering  crests  of  sister  hills,  purple  in  the  soften 
ing  light.  The  wind  that  blew  against  their  faces  was 
cold,  but  in  its  mellow  chilliness  was  a  lost  promise  of 
Spring,  a  whisper  of  sternnesses  relaxed,  a  prophecy  of 
birth  mysterious  in  its  very  remoteness. 

Storrow,  with  a  deep  breath,  turned  and  looked  at  the 
girl  beside  him.  He  was  struck  by  a  sense  of  rareness, 
an  inalienable  fineness  of  fibre,  in  the  poised  body  as 
slim  as  the  young  elm  beside  which  it  stood.  There  was 
a  new  note  of  reliance  in  the  abstracted  eyes,  apparently 
so  eager  to  drink  in  that  wide-flung  vista  of  earth  and 
sky  translated  into  beauty  by  the  ancient  miracle  of  light. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  229 

He  turned  and  looked  away  as  the  small  black-gloved 
hand  lifted  and  pointed  towards  the  west. 

"  There's  the  Sound,  where  you  and  I  nearly  went 
under,"  she  quietly  remarked. 

He  stared  at  the  blue-green  stretch  of  colour,  flashing 
with  its  silver  and  golden  scales  of  drift-ice. 

"  There  are  so  many  different  ways  of  going  under," 
he  finally  asserted. 

"  But  you  never  will,  Owen,"  was  Charlotte's  equally 
low-toned  reply.  "  I  like  to  think  of  you  as  invincible." 

"  That  seems  to  imply  that  I  impress  you  as  having 
odds  to  fight  against,"  he  replied,  foolishly  over-sensitive 
to  the  demands  he  must  have  made  on  her  faith. 

"  But  you'll  never  regard  them  as  that,"  she  bravely 
contended.  "  In  some  way,  at  the  end,  you'll  win  out. 
I  know  you  will." 

'  Then  I'm  losing,  as  things  now  are?  "  he  asked,  meet 
ing  her  gaze. 

"  I  didn't  say  that,"  she  replied,  knitting  her  brows, 
without  knowing  it,  as  she  lost  herself  in  a  prolonged  and 
judicial  inspection  of  his  face.  She  noticed  the  slow 
wave  of  colour  that  crept  up  to  his  forehead,  and  turned 
away  to  stare  out  over  the  Sound.  It  was  not  until  they 
had  crossed  a  meadow  and  passed  through  a  gate  that 
brought  them  back  to  the  highway  that  Charlotte  spoke 
again. 

"  You  know,  Owen,  that  nearly  everything  in  my  life 
has  tended  to  make  me  smug.  And  I  hate  smugness. 
Sometimes,  lately,  I  have  even  felt  that  I  hate  goodness. 
It  seems  to  imply  the  things  that  are  neutral  and  passive 
and  trivial.  At  least  that's  the  kind  of  goodness  that 
has  always  seemed  to  shut  me  in.  And  I've  come  to 
have  a  horror  of  being  shut  in,  as  though  I  was  always 
being  kept  behind  window-glass.  And  when  you  come 
to  think  of  it,  I  always  have  been  behind  window-glass 
—  the  window-glass  of  home,  the  window-glass  of  hotels, 
the  window-glass  of  railway  trains,  the  window-glass  of 


230  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

a  limousine.  I  never  asked  for  it ;  I  never  wanted  to  be 
sheltered  that  way.  But  I  was.  And  all  the  while  I  was 
a  kind  of  impostor  without  quite  knowing  it.  Inside  of 
me  was  a  big  black  spirit  of  revolt,  like  a  barrel  of  dyna 
mite  buried  in  a  prim  little  New  England  flower-garden. 
That's  one  reason  why  I'm  here.  I  couldn't  stand  that 
solemn,  big  Brooklyn  house.  I  couldn't  have  endured 
all  those  unspeakable  people  in  black  for  another  hour. 
So  I  took  the  bit  in  my  teeth  and  bolted.  I  began  to  see 
just  how  you  must  have  felt  last  autumn,  when  you  went 
back  to  the  city.  The  only  difference  was  that  I'd  always 
been  too  cowardly  to  fight  for  my  freedom." 

Storrow's  thoughts  went  back  to  that  over-stately  and 
over-secluded  home,  stamped  with  the  ponderous  seal  of 
its  well-being,  standing  so  imperturbably  and  so  firmly 
established  in  the  upper  airs  of  that  hungrily  crowded  city 
where  all  such  altitude  once  seemed  something  to  be  en 
vied.  Yet  its  dignity  was  a  retrospective  one,  made  up 
of  restraint  and  ponderous  respectability  fagaded  with 
liveried  servants,  a  fussily  slow-moving  semi-cloistral 
and  semi-nomadic  life  concocted  of  periodic  migrations 
and  polite  charities,  of  subscription  concerts  and  de 
corous  church  interests,  of  sedately  restrained  shopping- 
tours  and  heavily  engineered  receptions,  of  a  jealously 
meticulous  cultivation  of  the  Old  Order  and  a  closed  door 
against  the  New.  And  in  the  midst  of  it,  apparently,  this 
girl  who  had  been  brought  up  behind  window-glass,  as 
she  complained,  had  been  forced  to  fight  for  her  pallid 
vitality  as  grass  covered  by  a  board  must  fight  for  life. 

"  You  have  no  idea,  Owen,"  she  was  saying  to  him, 
"  of  the  wickednesses  I'd  be  capable  of.  I  don't  think 
I'm  more  of  an  outlaw  than  other  women,  but  I  feel  that 
I've  been  cheated.  I've  a  sort  of  ache  to  get  even  with 
the  world,  the  same  sort  of  hunger  to  dance  your  feet 
off  that  a  girl  has  when  she  finds  a  car-accident  has  kept 
her  two  hours  late  for  an  Assembly  night  at  Sherry's/' 

Storrow  was  no  longer  laughing  at  her. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  231 

"  We  all  want  our  share  of  happiness,"  he  acknowl 
edged.  "  And  trying  to  get  it  is  what  makes  such  a 
muddle  of  life." 

She  stopped  short  and  looked  at  him  with  almost  de 
fiant  eyes. 

"  But  it's  not  happiness  that  I  want,"  she  contended. 
"  What  I  want  is  life  itself.  I  want  to  be  bigly  and 
keenly  alive,  even  if  it's  going  to  make  me  suffer.  I'm 
beginning  to  have  a  sort  of  horror  of  just  wasting  and 
withering  up.  I'd  rather  see  a  cyclone  smash  the  whole 
conservatory.  I've  tired  of  being  suppressed  and  sedate 
and  guarded.  I'm  beginning  to  realize  that  I'm  a  really 
dangerous  woman.  It's  not  that  I  feel  something  com 
ing;  it's  more  the  necessity  for  something  to  come.  And 
I  warn  you,  Owen,  that  if  you  cross  my  path  when  I'm 
flying  my  red  flag  of  anarchy,  I'll  make  you  open 
your  eyes  considerably  wider  than  they  are  at  this 
moment." 

He  could  afford,  by  this  time,  to  laugh  at  her  openly. 

"  Being  wicked  in  that  awful  way,  Charlotte,"  he  told 
her,  "  is  really  an  art,  and  like  all  arts  it  has  its  own 
particular  technique,  a  technique  which  has  to  be  ac 
quired."  Then  of  a  sudden  he  grew  serious  again,  for 
his  thoughts  were  swinging  back  to  the  city  he  had  left 
behind  him  and  the  woman  he  had  left  behind  him.  He 
himself  had  been  callow  and  cramped  and  narrow,  and 
Torrie  had  known  the  wise  woman's  clouded  glory  of 
bringing  him  wisdom.  Then  he  remembered  what  she 
had  once  said  about  the  drabness  of  life  and  how  too 
much  monotony  might  not  unnaturally  be  expected  to  lead 
to  an  eruption. 

"  And  acquiring  a  technique  implies  a  teacher,  doesn't 
it?"  Charlotte  was  inquiring. 

"  Sometimes  several  of  them,"  retorted  her  companion, 
with  his  thoughts  still  back  in  the  city. 

"  You  don't  seem  to  take  my  wickedness  very  seri 
ously,"  complained  the  solemn-eyed  girl  at  his  side. 


232  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  I  can't.  It's  too  self-conscious.  And  nothing,  as 
some  one  has  said,  survives  being  thought  of." 

"  Then  I'll  have  to  shock  you  into  respecting  it,  after 
all,"  was  the  other's  meditative  reply. 

Yet  that  night  at  dinner,  as  he  sat  opposite  her  in  the 
high-ceilinged  and  shadowy  dining-room,  almost  op 
pressed  by  the  ordered  silence  which  the  quiet  movements 
of  the  liveried  servants  only  seemed  to  accentuate,  he 
wakened  to  a  realization  that  her  confession  had  not  been 
without  its  causes.  She  seemed  an  infinitely  fragile  and 
isolated  figure  muffled  in  the  over-voluminous  tapestry 
of  tradition,  a  tapestry  too  unwieldy  to  be  draped  as  she 
wished.  She  stood  forlornly  involved  in  the  complicated 
agencies  of  comfort  which  failed  to  bring  comfort,  as 
oppressed  by  their  meaningless  ramifications  as  a  song- 
sparrow  intimidated  by  the  drone  of  a  machine-shop. 
And  in  her,  only  too  plainly,  was  awakening  some  need 
for  rhapsody,  some  call  of  the  soul  for  its  human  right 
to  know  and  suffer. 

"What  would  you  advise?"  she  asked  across  the  ob 
long  of  white  damask  that  separated  them,  apparently 
reading  his  thoughts. 

"  I'd  advise  prayers  being  offered  up,  Charlotte,  for  the 
idle  rich,  the  same  as  for  those  in  peril  on  the  sea,"  he 
replied,  with  an  effort  to  shoulder  aside  her  solemnity. 
But  her  answering  smile  was  as  brief  as  it  was  preoc 
cupied. 

"  I've  been  thinking  of  taking  up  nursing,"  she  an 
nounced,  "  of  going  into  training." 

"  But  what  would  you  do  about  —  about  all  this  ?  " 
asked  Storrow,  with  a  glance  about  the  ponderously  fur 
nished  room. 

"  Escape  from  it,"  was  the  prompt  reply. 

Storrow,  as  the  liveried  servant  placed  the  gold-lined 
cup  of  cafe  noir  before  him,  and  beside  it  the  cognac, 
and  beside  the  cognac  the  heavily  chased  cigarette-box, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  233 

and  beside  that  again  the  little  blue-flamed  alcohol-torch 
in  its  burnished  silver  container,  could  not  help  remem 
bering  that  this  efficient  machinery  of  service  was  not 
without  its  consolations.  There  crept  back  to  his  mind  a 
picture  of  the  crowded  and  disordered  studio  which  he 
had  so  recently  forsaken.  He  recalled  the  sense  of  be 
ing  cabined  and  cramped,  the  discomfort  of  enforced 
and  over-intimate  contact  with  another,  the  recurrent 
momentously  puny  questions  of  housekeeping,  the  matu 
tinal  worry  as  to  supply  and  demand,  the  inconveniences 
and  exiguities  of  a  daily  routine  which  seemed  so  unduly 
to  magnify  the  importance  of  appetite  and  its  appease 
ment.  That,  after  all,  was  what  men  and  women  strug 
gled  to  escape.  And  this  other,  in  the  end,  was  what 
most  men  toiled  and  plotted  to  achieve.  It  was  only  an 
other  phase  of  that  eternal  quest  for  freedom  for  which 
men  sold  their  souls  and  women  not  infrequently  their 
bodies. 

"  But  why  should  you  want  to  be  a  trained  nurse  ?  " 
Storrow  asked,  not  unconscious  of  the  sacrifices  any  such 
move  would  involve. 

Charlotte,  before  replying,  dismissed  the  liveried  man 
servant  with  the  impassive  and  mask-like  face. 

"  There  isn't  much  I  believe  in,  Owen,"  she  said  when 
they  were  alone.  "  But  I  do  know  that  somewhere  deep 
inside  of  me  is  a  spark  that  must  be  kept  alive,  that 
brings  a  sort  of  tragedy  into  our  lives  when  we  let  it  go 
out.  It's  something  more  than  the  wonder  of  life,  though 
the  wonder  of  life  is  something  we  can't  permit  to  die 
in  us.  I  suppose  it's  more  a  gift,  the  gift  of  some  final 
belief  in  things.  And  that's  mixed  up  in  some  way  with 
another  gift  which  women  have.  You  can  call  it  devo 
tion,  or  you  can  call  it  the  blind  longing  to  be  of  service. 
You  can  call  it  anything  you  like.  But  it's  there,  and  if 
you  ignore  its  voice,  you  pay  for  that  neglect,  the  same 
as  you  pay  for  the  neglect  of  your  body." 


234  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

Storrow,  as  he  stared  across  the  table  at  the  girl  in  the 
high-backed  chair,  found  something  solemnifying  in  this 
unexpectedly  candid  confession  of  faith. 

"If  you  feel  that  way,  Charlotte,"  he  said  out  of  the 
silence  that  had  fallen  over  them,  "  why  don't  you 
marry?  " 

"  That,"  she  told  him,  "  is  out  of  the  question." 

"Why?" 

"  Because,"  she  said  with  quiet  candour,  "  the  man  I 
was  in  love  with  married  another  woman." 

Her  gaze,  directed  valiantly  into  Storrow's  slightly 
flinching  eyes,  left  no  shadow  of  doubt  as  to  her  mean 
ing. 

"  But  there  are  so  many  men,"  he  murmured,  extenuat- 
ingly,  out  of  a  silence  even  more  prolonged  than  the 
first. 

"  But  wasn't  it  a  fellow-countryman  of  yours  who 
once  said: 

"  The  night  has  a  thousand  eyes, 
And  the  day  but  one." 

You  know  the  rest!  " 

Storrow  knew  the  rest.  He  also  knew  as  he  sat  gazing 
across  the  intervening  oblong  of  damask,  that  the  quiet- 
eyed  girl  with  the  wistful  smile  was  no  longer  the  shell- 
pink  shepherdess  of  Dresden  china  that  he  had  once  con 
sidered  her.  Time  had  brought  its  changes  to  her,  had 
brought  maturity,  had  brought  courage,  had  brought  a 
ripening  vigour  which  could  even  prove  disquieting  to 
the  man  on  whom  her  eyes  were  resting  with  an  almost 
meditative  defiance.  Yet  more  disturbing  to  him  than 
their  defiance  was  the  intervening  milder  light  which  sut- 
fused  and  softened  them.  In  that  gaze,  too,  he  beheld 
audacity,  though  he  tried  to  tell  himself  it  was  merely 
the  unconsidering  audacity  of  youth.  He  remembered, 
with  an  eruptive  bodily  warmth  which  left  him  with  a 
nettling  skin,  an  earlier  scene  in  that  house,  a  scene  which, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  235 

through  no  decipherable  fault  of  his  own,  recurred  to 
him  with  a  persistent  sense  of  the  ignominious. 

Charlotte  herself  must  have  fathomed  the  cause  of  his 
momentary  discomfort,  for  she  laughed  a  little  as  she 
pushed  back  her  chair. 

"  Are  you  still  impregnable  ?  "  she  asked  as  she  came 
and  stood  beside  him. 

"  I'm  afraid  I'm  still  stupid,"  he  clumsily  replied,  puz 
zled  by  a  fluttering  note  of  what  seemed  like  disdain  in 
her  voice.  Yet  a  vast  tranquillity  possessed  her  face  as 
she  placed  one  hand  on  his  head. 

"  It's  not  stupidity,  Owen,"  she  told  him.  "  It's 
honesty.  It's  that  dreadful  disheartening  honesty  which 
I  thought  they  were  taking  away  from  you." 

"  I  wouldn't  bank  on  it  too  much,"  he  said  with  a 
forlorn  effort  at  lightness,  acutely  conscious  of  her  near 
ness.  And  that  nearness  had  brought  flashing  back  to 
his  mind  the  familiar  intimate  approaches  of  Torrie. 

"  Look  at  me,"  she  commanded,  as  she  turned  his 
slightly  averted  head.  "  Even  now,  at  this  very  moment, 
you  are  thinking  about  another  woman !  " 

"  On  the  contrary,"  he  protested,  "  I  was  thinking  very 
much  about  you." 

"  What  were  you  thinking?  "  she  diffidently  inquired. 

"  How  lovely  you  look,"  he  compelled  himself  to  ac 
knowledge.  And  that  declaration  was  true  enough,  in 
its  way,  but  she  seemed  conscious  of  its  deficiencies. 

"  Dear  old  dissembler,"  she  said  with  her  wintry 
smile.  "  You  won't  even  give  me  a  taste  of  power,  the 
power  every  woman  is  so  famished  to  feel.  And  you 
are  impregnable !  " 

He  rose  to  his  feet  close  beside  her,  and  their  glances 
met  and  locked.  They  locked  together,  not  altogether 
challengingly,  not  altogether  combatively.  But  in  that 
long  look  dwelt  something  denuding  and  isolating,  as 
though  the  world  were  ebbing  slowly  away  beneath  them, 
leaving  them  poised  in  inter-stellar  emptiness. 


236  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  You  are  not  impregnable,"  she  said  very  quietly,  as 
she  closed  her  eyes. 

He  took  a  step  towards  her.  He  took  a  step  in  her 
direction  and  then  turned  towards  the  table.  For  a  door 
had  opened  and  a  servant  stood  before  him.  As  Storrow 
made  that  movement  the  memory  of  Vibbard's  movement 
towards  his  Sentinel  Wolf  flashed  back  in  his  mind,  bring 
ing  with  it  an  inundating  and  emancipating  wave  of  self- 
hate. 

"  You  are  wanted  at  the  telephone,  sir,"  he  heard  the 
servant  announcing. 

"I?"  he  asked. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  was  the  impassive  response. 

"  But  it  must  be  some  mistake.  There's  no  one  could 
possibly  want  " 

He  did  not  finish. 

"  It's  Mrs.  Storrow,  sir,"  explained  the  footman. 
"  And  she  said  that  it  was  urgent." 


CHAPTER   NINETEEN 

THE  air  of  ghostliness  about  every-day  objects, 
the  vague  sense  of  unreality  in  familiar  things, 
taking  possession  of  Storrow  on  his  return  to 
the  city    did  not  remain  with  him   for  any  ponderable 
length    of   time.     Old   scenes   and  old   habits   promptly 
caught  him  up  in  their  course,  as  the  steel  rails  catch  a 
car  making  a  flying  switch,  and  guided  him  back  into  a 
flat  and  familiar  world. 

Even  Torrie's  matter  of  urgency,  so  mysteriously  with 
held,  failed  to  impress  him,  once  he  was  back  in  the  studio, 
as  anything  approaching  the  momentous.  It  was  merely 
that  The  Seventh  Wave  company  had  been  reorganized 
for  a  road  tour  and  Krassler  had  sent  a  hurried  call  for 
her  to  rejoin  the  departing  forces. 

"  And  why  couldn't  that  have  been  mentioned  over  the 
telephone  ? "  asked  Storrow,  resenting  the  natural  in 
ference  that  he  had  been  deliberately  manipulated,  that 
for  an  ulterior  purpose  he  had  been  kept  on  the  tenter 
hooks  of  anxiety.  Yet  Torrie's  almost  colourless  face 
remained  impassive,  even  before  his  unmodified  note  of 
mockery. 

"  I  felt  that  you  might  not  want  me  to  go  out  with  that 
road  company.  And  long-distance  wasn't  the  place  for 
carrying  on  an  argument  about  it  —  especially  after 
spending  over  an  hour  in  finding  you." 

He  stared  at  her,  with  a  singular  detachment  of  mind, 
unimpressed  by  the  note  of  bitterness  in  her  voice,  for 
all  its  quietness.  What  did  succeed  in  impressing  him, 
however,  was  the  weariness  of  the  white  face,  heavy 
about  the  eyes  and  mouth,  the  listlessness  that  had  im- 

237 


238  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

posed  itself  upon  the  once  ardent  and  child-like  contours. 

"  You  weren't  always  so  considerate  of  my  feelings," 
he  retorted,  steeling  his  heart  against  her  pose  of  unpro- 
testing  world-weariness. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?"  she  almost  triumph 
antly  challenged,  glad,  apparently,  to  find  a  prolonged 
and  benumbing  constraint  breaking  out  at  last  into  a 
clarifying  storm  of  words. 

"  I  mean  that  a  telegram  was  delivered  here  three  days 
ago,  and  I  never  got  it.  A  message  for  me !  " 

She  looked  up  at  him  steadily. 

"  You  were  much  too  drunk  to  do  anything  when  that 
wire  came,  even  if  you  could  have  understood  it,"  she 
quietly  explained. 

"  But  that  message  was  for  me,"  he  reiterated. 

"  Well,  it's  somewhere  about.  Nobody's  keeping  it 
from  you." 

"  But  it  was  kept  from  me,"  he  contended.  "  And 
you  succeeded  in  humiliating  me  before  "• 

"  Before  whom?  "  she  cut  in,  jealously,  at  his  moment 
of  hesitation. 

"  Before  my  relatives."  It  sounded  inadequate,  and 
he  knew  it. 

"  Well,  I  can't  see  that  those  relatives  ever  did  very 
much  for  me,  or  for  you  either,"  she  scornfully  ex 
claimed. 

He  began  to  see  how  foolish  and  futile  it  all  was.  He 
turned  away  from  her  with  a  movement  that  was  both 
angry  and  dismissive.  But  she  still  stood  before  him, 
with  what  he  accepted  as  a  mere  pretence  of  timidity. 

"  After  all,  it  was  me  you  married,"  she  said  in  a 
voice  that  was  thin  with  misery.  Her  moods,  he  de 
cided,  were  beyond  him.  They  were  incomprehensible 
in  their  capriciousness,  a  mixture  of  steel  and  rose-leaves, 
a  confusion  of  ice  and  flame. 

"  Yes,  it  was  you  I  married,"  he  slowly  repeated,  be 
holding  the  point  of  that  scornful  reiteration  pierce  like 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  239 

a  sabre  into  the  softness  of  her  body,  as  he  had  intended 
that  it  should.  Yet  there  was  no  touch  of  joy  to  his 
triumph.  He  had  looked  for  another  outburst  from  her, 
at  that,  a  noisy  fusillade  of  anger  that  would  have  eased 
his  soul  of  its  rancour,  that  would  have  purged  from  his 
mind  the  accumulating  miseries  which  seemed  without  an 
honest  and  adequate  outlet.  But  she  suddenly  impressed 
him  as  pitiful  before  the  crude  flail  of  his  scorn.  He 
wondered  how  men  could  come  to  hate  that  which  had 
once  been  so  involved  with  their  rapture  and  desire.  The 
contact  of  body  with  body,  he  found,  resulted  in  some 
thing  more  psychic  and  more  enduring  than  the  mere  con 
junction  of  flesh.  What  was  known  as  love  between 
man  and  woman,  establishing  itself  as  something  more 
than  the  sexual  glow  through  which  it  expressed  and  ex 
hausted  itself,  by  a  mysterious  out-thrusting  of  emotional 
filaments  could  still  bind  bewilderingly  together  the 
bodies  that  darker  passion  seemed  bent  on  dividing. 
The  glow  remembered,  the  secrecies  shared,  he  was  to 
find,  could  still  with  their  ghostly  voices  recall  and  re 
claim  the  past.  And  now,  with  something  dangerously 
close  to  hate  burning  in  his  heart,  he  found  pity  unnerv 
ing  him.  Women,  he  remembered,  were  frail  and  flex 
ible,  were  more  played  upon  by  their  environment,  were 
susceptible  to  influences  unknown  to  men.  It  was  the 
duty  of  the  strong,  accordingly,  to  protect  the  weak. 
And  with  Torrie,  after  all,  it  was  a  matter  of  weakness, 
of  surrender  to  impulse.  She  did  not  differ  from  other 
women,  except  that  she  was  more  vital.  Even  Charlotte 
Kirkner,  sheltered  and  sensitive,  as  fine-fibred  as  women 
were  made,  had  betrayed  a  promise  of  outlawry,  a  po 
tentiality  of  revolt  from  the  timeworn  paths  of  Right. 
It  was  man  who  sentimentalized  women,  who  established 
false  standards  towards  which  they  were  forced  to  strain. 
That  was  something  he  had  learned  from  the  city  which 
harboured  him.  And  with  it  he  wistfully  feathered  the 
nest  of  Compromise. 


240  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"Then  the  thing  is  settled!"  It  was  the  voice  of 
Torrie  speaking  in  a  tone  singularly  remote  and  final. 
Already  she  seemed  to  be  accosting  him  from  beyond  a 
gulf  of  terrifying  dimensions. 

"What  thing?"  he  demanded,  disturbed  in  spite  of 
himself. 

"  About  my  going,"  was  her  answer.  Already,  he 
fancied,  he  could  detect  about  her  a  valedictory  air,  a 
retrospective  and  autumnal  pensiveness  which  brought  a 
wave  of  misery  once  more  surging  over  him. 

"What  settled  it?"  he  asked,  waywardly  impelled  to 
reach  out  to  her  even  as  he  realized  that  such  an  approach 
would  be  too  vast  a  surrender. 

"  The  fact  that  you're  tired  of  me,"  was  her  answer. 

"  Have  I  ever  said  that?  "  he  temporized. 

"  No,  but  it's  made  plain  enough  by  your  actions." 

"  It's  not  only  my  actions  that  have  been  open  to  ques 
tion,"  he  countered. 

"  Then  I  ought  to  go  where  mine  won't  be  a  source  of 
trouble  to  you,"  was  Torrie's  retort.  It  was  said  with 
apparent  thoughtlessness,  and  yet  it  came  to  Storrow 
barbed  with  menace.  He  recalled  haphazard  impres 
sions  of  road-companies,  impressions  picked  up  from 
motion-pictures  and  Broadway  romances  and  studio  gos 
sip.  He  remembered  what  Chester  Hardy  had  said  to 
him  about  stage-life.  And  the  thought  of  her  once  more 
engulfed  in  that  devastating  environment  became  un 
bearable.  To  surrender  her  to  such  a  life  seemed  a  con 
tradiction  of  every  protectional  instinct  in  his  being.  It 
seemed  the  end  —  the  end  of  everything. 

He  crossed  the  room  to  the  window  and  stood  staring 
out. 

"  I'd  rather  you  didn't  go,"  he  said  in  a  strained  voice, 
without  turning  his  head. 

She  stood  watching  him,  without  changing  her  posi 
tion.  "  Why  not?  "  she  asked. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  241 

"  I  don't  want  you  to  go,"  he  repeated,  almost 
brusquely. 

And  that  was  all  that  came  of  the  matter,  at  the  time, 
for  Torrie,  with  the  unrelaxed  lines  of  thought  still  fur 
rowing  her  creamy  forehead,  made  it  a  point  to  absent 
herself  from  the  studio  as  soon  as  she  could  withdraw 
without  any  seeming  sacrifice  of  dignity. 

Yet  the  question  was  brought  up  again,  two  hours 
later,  when  Pannie  Atwill  invaded  the  studio  and  found 
Storrow  there,  alone  in  the  paling  afternoon  light. 

"  How's  things?  "  she  lightly  inquired  as  she  discarded 
the  white  fox  furs  which  encased  her  up  to  the  eyes. 

"  Tangled  up,  as  things  most  always  seem  to  be,"  re 
sponded  Storrow,  anticipating  her  hand-reach  for  the 
cigarette-box. 

"  Where's  the  odalisk  ?  "  asked  Pannie,  with  a  glance 
about  the  room. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  demanded  Storrow. 

''Where's  the /raw?" 

"  Shopping,  I  believe,"  answered  Storrow. 

"  Gettin'  ready  for  the  grape-vine  circuit?  " 

Still  again  Storrow  did  not  understand  her. 

"  Gettin'  ready  to  go  out  with  that  Krassler  bunch?  " 
she  said  by  way  of  exegesis. 

"  I  hardly  think  so." 

"She's  goin',  ain't  she?"  demanded  Pannie. 

"  She  is  not,"  asserted  Storrow. 

"  Odalisk  is  right,"  observed  Pannie,  under  her  breath. 
Then  she  blew  a  smoke-ring,  and  through  that  blew  a 
smaller  one.  "  Hermie  will  throw  a  fit,  when  he  gets 
hep  to  that.  He  thinks  he  can  smooth  out  that  play  on 
the  rubes  and  bring  it  back  to  Broadway  a  knock-out. 
And  he  intended  Torrie  to  be  the  big  splash  when  they 
hit  this  Hudson  levee  again." 

"  But  Torrie  wasn't  the  star  of  that  production,"  con 
tended  Storrow.  "  She  didn't  even  have  the  lead." 


242  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  Of  course  she  didn't,  dearie,"  acknowledged  Pannie. 
"  But  Krassler  was  nursin'  her  like  an  eighteen-inch  naval 
gun.  He  was  keepin'  her  tarpaulined  down  until  the 
Broadway  openin',  and  then  he  was  goin'  to  let  her  loose 
and  smother  the  performance.  Hully  gee,  man,  why  do 
you  suppose  he  was  belascoin'  'round  here  in  private,  and 
coachin'  her  under  cover,  and  frettin'  and  workin'  his 
crazy  little  kike  heart  out  if  it  wasn't  to  give  her  her  Big 
Chance?  " 

Storrow  seemed  slow  to  absorb  the  situation  which 
Pannie  thought  she  had  made  plain  to  him. 

"  But  why  should  Krassler  go  out  of  his  way  to 
manoeuvre  her  into  a  chance  which  couldn't  have  been 
quite  legitimate?"  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  it's  legitimate  all  right,  once  you  can  get  away 
with  it,"  announced  Pannie,  with  the  wisdom  of  the  ser 
pent  in  her  artless  young  eyes. 

"  But  why  should  he  do  it,  or  want  to  do  it?  " 

An  invisible  shutter  was  drawn  down  over  the  wise 
young  face. 

"  I  guess  Hermie  had  banked  on  Torrie  gettin'  away 
with  it,"  she  offhandedly  acknowledged. 

It  occurred  to  Storrow  that  Hermie  was  banking  alto 
gether  too  much  on  the  lady  in  question,  though  he  re 
sisted  the  impulse  to  assert  the  same  to  the  sophisticated 
young  woman  confronting  him.  He  was  growing  into 
a  clearer  perception  of  the  fact  that  Krassler 's  interest  in 
Torrie  was  something  more  than  a  professional  one. 
And  once  that  fact  became  established  in  his  mind  he 
grew  more  fixed  in  his  opposition  to  his  wife's  adventur 
ing  forth  with  a  road-company.  And  Torrie  herself, 
after  a  day  or  two  of  opposition,  gave  up  the  idea.  She 
bent  to  his  will,  apparently  impressed  by  the  fact  that  an 
opposite  course  would  lead  to  a  break  that  would  prove 
final.  Her  surrender,  however,  was  not  an  unqualified 
one.  There  was  a  note  of  constraint,  sometimes  almost 
a  note  of  bitterness,  in  her  attitude  towards  Storrow. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  243 

She  was  depressed  for  a  day  when  a  Buffalo  paper,  sent 
back  through  the  mail,  brought  an  exceptionally  long  and 
enthusiastic  review  of  The  Seventh  Wave. 

But  she  said  nothing  about  it  to  her  husband. 

Storrow  himself,  with  his  novel  finally  disposed  of, 
was  already  hard  at  work  at  a  short  story  or  two.  His 
struggles  in  this  new  medium  were  not  mild  ones,  for  he 
was  determined  to  push  them  through  to  an  end  without 
in  any  way  calling  on  Hardy  for  help.  His  progress 
was  slow  and  his  first  results  were  far  from  satisfactory. 
When  his  second  efforts  seemed  equally  futile  he  became 
depressed  and  morose.  Torrie,  in  fact,  even  announced 
that  living  with  a  bilious  author  was  worse  than  living 
with  a  bear  with  a  sore  paw,  and  advertised  her  intention 
of  giving  him  the  studio  to  himself  as  much  as  she  was 
able.  This  policy  of  absentation  flowered  in  a  later  an 
nouncement  that  Donnie  Eastman  was  getting  up  a  series 
of  historical  tableaux,  at  the  Biltmore,  and  that  she 
had  accepted  his  offer  to  take  part  in  a  couple  of  the 
groups. 

To  this  Storrow  offered  no  objections,  though  he  found 
it  presented  as  an  excuse  for  more  and  more  prolonged 
absences,  for  unexpected  telephone-calls,  for  surprisingly 
late  home-comings  to  the  studio.  And  through  it  all 
Storrow  nursed  a  sense  of  waiting  for  something,  some 
thing  which  he  was  unable  to  define.  When  he  asked 
himself  if  it  were  release,  he  was  unable  to  define  the 
thing  from  which  he  sought  liberation.  When  he  pon 
dered  if  it  were  merely  the  promise  of  Spring  working 
in  his  nomad's  blood,  he  could  see  no  possible  change  to 
come  from  the  changing  season. 

But  as  the  Winter  slipped  away  he  found  himself  pos 
sessed  by  a  listlessness  which  he  could  not  explain.  The 
appeal  seemed  to  have  gone  out  of  the  city  about  him, 
which  cared  neither  for  his  happiness  nor  his  misery,  his 
success  nor  his  failure.  He  became  a  victim  of  that 
vague  indifferency  imposed  upon  him  by  the  dwarfing 


244  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

influences  of  numbers.  The  city  humbled  a  man,  he 
found.  And  it  also  tended  to  obliterate  him. 

Yet  he  remembered,  word  for  word,  what  Charlotte 
Kirkner  had  said  about  life.  "  Somewhere  deep  inside 
of  us  is  a  spark  that  must  be  kept  alive,  a  light  that  brings 
a  sort  of  tragedy  into  our  lives  when  we  let  it  go  out." 
And  whatever  happened,  he  told  himself  as  he  went  back 
to  his  work  very  much  like  going  back  to  the  side  of  an 
old  and  dependable  comrade,  that  light  must  live. 

One  raw  and  blustery  afternoon  when  March  gave 
every  promise  of  going  out  like  a  lion  he  was  alone  in  his 
studio,  going  over  the  proofs  of  his  book.  This  task, 
with  its  evidences  of  definite  accomplishment,  brought 
with  it  an  unexpected  revival  of  spirits.  He  had,  after 
all,  created  something,  of  his  own  wit  made  something  to 
redeem  him  from  blank  namelessness,  left  a  record  for 
others  to  read  and  understand.  And  this  thing  of  his 
own,  clothed  now  in  the  authority  of  print,  fortified  him 
with  a  new  and  timorous  pride.  When  a  knock  sounded 
on  his  door  he  rose  to  answer  it  abstractedly,  still  think 
ing  of  a  purple  patch  which  had  been  able  to  quicken  his 
pulse  a  trifle.  He  even  wondered,  in  a  brief  and  frag 
mentary  way,  if  the  resolution  of  life's  fever  were  but 
tressed  on  work,  and  work  alone. 

"  D'  yuh  use  models,  at  all  —  models  such  as  me?  "  a 
husky  and  none  too  hopeful  voice  was  inquiring  of  him 
out  of  the  gloom. 

Storrow  found  himself  staring  at  a  great  hulk  of  a 
man,  with  rain  dripping  from  his  ragged  coat-edges. 
There  was  something  reminiscent  about  that  Titanic  and 
melancholy  figure,  a  mist  of  memory  shot  through  with 
pain.  Then  Storrow  understood. 

It  was  Michael  Mullaly,  the  one-time  engineer  of  The 
Alzvyn  Arms,  the  drunkard  who  had  beaten  his  wife  at 
the  bottom  of  a  fire-escape  and  opened  the  door  of  an 
adventure  leading  to  dark  and  unlocked  for  consequences. 

"  Come  in,"  said  Storrow,  stepping  back  as  the  sodden 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  245 

figure  lumbered  past  him.  And  he  was  neither  gladdened 
nor  saddened  to  behold  that  once  defiant  Hercules  so 
sorry  and  suppliant  a  figure.  Calamity  and  the  cup  that 
cheers  had  plainly  marked  him  as  their  own.  Silently 
the  two  men  confronted  each  other  in  the  clearer  light 
of  the  studio.  Slowly  recognition  crept  into  the  blinking 
Celtic  eyes. 

"  Why,  yuh're  the  lad  "-  -  began  Mullaly.  Then  dis 
cretion  brought  him  up  short,  with  an  uncomfortable 
hitch  of  the  giant  hips. 

"  Yes,  I'm  the  man,"  said  Storrow,  understandingly, 
with  a  glance  down  at  the  other's  open  and  leaking  shoes. 

The  dilapidated  Goliath  studied  his  old-time  enemy. 
He  stood  a  little  bewildered  at  the  discovery  that  no 
enmity  lurked  in  the  other's  glance. 

"  That  was  a  grand  fight,"  he  finally  averred,  with 
guile.  "A  grand  fight!"' 

"  Did  it  strike  you  that  way?"  asked  Storrow,  his 
thoughts  a  mile  away. 

"  Yuh  had  me  beat,  me  lad,  yuh  had  me  beat  from  the 
first !  "  He  shook  his  bull  head  heavily.  "  But  yuh'll 
niver  find  wimmen-f oik  fightin'  fair.  Yuh  will  not !  "  he 
protested,  by  way  of  extenuation,  as  he  looked  about  for 
a  chair,  sank  into  it  unbidden,  and  placed  his  wet  hat  on 
the  floor  beside  him. 

Storrow  remained  silent.  It  had  been  a  foolish  fight, 
he  remembered,  a  tragically  foolish  fight.  He  noticed 
Mullaly's  wandering  eye  come  to  a  stop  at  the  decanter 
on  the  buhl  table.  That  decanter,  during  the  ensuing 
silence,  seemed  to  loom  larger  and  larger  in  his  visitor's 
consciousness,  until  it  alone  remained,  mountainously  re 
mindful,  with  the  light  striking  amber  and  gold  and 
provocatively  mellow  through  its  core. 

So  Storrow,  still  without  speaking,  carried  the  rye 
and  a  glass  and  a  plate  of  biscuits  to  the  side  of  the  wet 
and  bedraggled  Hercules.  And  Mullaly,  no  longer 
blinking,  filled  the  glass  and  took  it  "  neat."  The  blue 


246  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

lips  smacked  appreciatively.  Then  the  faded  blue  eye 
gazed  dolorously  down  at  the  emptied  glass.  So  lugubri 
ous  was  that  contemplation  of  patent  emptiness,  in  fact, 
that  Storrow  nodded.  The  man  was  wet  and  chilled, 
and  in  need  of  warmth.  And  without  further  ceremony 
Mullaly  repeated  the  operation  of  promptly  rilling  and 
just  as  promptly  emptying  the  glass  again. 

"And  that  gerrl?"  asked  Mullaly,  after  another  si 
lence,  as  he  crossed  his  ponderous  moist  legs.  "  Had 
yuh  iver  seen  her  b'fore  that  day?  " 

Storrow  acknowledged  that  he  had  not. 

"  And  I've  been  thinkin'  yuh  hadn't,  this  many  a 
time,"  retorted  Mullaly. 

"  Why  do  you  say  that?  "  demanded  the  other,  nettled 
by  the  note  of  vague  triumph  in  his  visitor's  voice. 

"  She  was  a  bad  lot,  that  gerrl." 

Storrow,  with  a  tightening  about  his  heart  which  was 
reflected  in  the  sudden  hardening  of  his  face,  refilled  his 
visitor's  glass. 

"  I  didn't  know  that,"  he  observed,  with  argumentative 
impersonality,  yet  in  the  grip  of  that  torturing  vulpine 
craft  which  is  the  hand-maiden  of  suspicion. 

"  Why  that  gerrl,"  asserted  Mullaly,  leaning  confi 
dentially  forward  in  his  chair,  "  was  a  " — 

"  Don't  use  that  word,"  Storrow  sharply  cut  in.  He 
remembered,  with  a  dizzy  flash  of  despair,  how  he  had 
first  heard  it,  that  hot  summer  afternoon,  through  the 
rusty  iron  rods  of  a  fire-escape.  And  it  seemed  a  very 
long  time  ago. 

"  'Tis  the  only  worrud,  sir/'  Mullaly  solemnly  main 
tained. 

"  But  I  don't  believe  it,"  cried  Storrow,  white  to  the 
eyes.  "  I  can't  believe  it !  " 

"  Thin  ask  a  little  Joo  stage-man  be  the  name  av 
Kreisler  or  Krissler,  and  see  what  answer  yuh'll  be  get- 
tin',''  calmly  pursued  his  sodden  torturer.  "  Or  that 
skinny  ould  Roosian  wid  a  face  like  a  tombstone  and  a 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  247 

weakness  f  r  young  gerrls,  the  same  ould  Roosian  that 
O'Leary  wanst  put  out  av  the  Alwyn  Arrums  —  and 
Gawd  knows,  sir,  that  same  Alwyn  Arrums  was  niver  the 
abidin'  place  av  angels !  " 

"  That's  nonsense,"  protested  Storrow  in  his  forlorn 
and  bitter  spirit  of  opposition.  "  She  was  never  put  out 
of  The  Alwyn  Arms,  and  we're  talking  about  her." 

"  No,  she  wasn't,"  he  averred,  from  under  glowering 
brows.  "  She  wasn't,  seein'  she  had  a  pull  wid  O'Leary 
himself,  down  in  the  office.  And  it  was  pull  enough  to 
have  me  put  out  ov  a  job  I'd  hild  steady  f'r  three  years, 
doin'  the  best  a  man  could  wid  " — 

"  Was  that  after  —  after  the  fight  you've  just  had  the 
kindness  to  remind  me  of?"  demanded  Storrow. 

"  It  was,"  retorted  Mullaly,  digressing  into  a  long  and 
lachrymose  recountal  of  the  resultant  disasters.  But  that 
recital  of  woe  and  injustice  was  already  falling  on  deaf 
ears.  Storrow's  mind,  electrified  into  a  morbid  activity, 
was  going  over  the  past  step  by  step  and  day  by  day, 
reviewing  incidents  which  at  the  time  had  seemed  in 
nocent,  reinterpreting  them  by  the  light  of  his  dubious 
new  knowledge.  But  he  refused  to  accept  the  incredible. 
He  lashed  himself  with  the  accusation  of  stark  stupidity, 
in  listening  to  the  maunderings  of  a  drunken  and  vindic 
tive  Irish  janitor.  The  entire  thing  was  becoming  loath 
some,  unendurable.  And  as  Mullaly,  played  on  by  the 
united  warmths  from  without  and  within,  betrayed  un 
mistakable  signs  of  surrendering  to  slumber,  he  was  none 
too  gently  roused  from  his  alcoholic  stupor  and  helped 
out  through  the  door,  still  quaveringly  lamenting  the 
old  days  when  an  honest  man  wasn't  thrown  out  of  a 
job  without  reason. 


CHAPTER   TWENTY 

STORROW,  alone  in  his  studio,  sat  down  and  strug 
gled  to  straighten  out  a  disorganized  world.  But 
always  between  him  and  what  promised  to  be  tran 
quillity  stood  that  mocking  and  leering  suspicion  which 
proved  too  intangible  to  be  combated  and  too  persistent 
to  be  ignored.  As  he  sat  confronted  by  uncertainties 
which  could  prove  more  torturing  than  truth  itself  his 
unhappy  and  wandering  eyes  rested  on  his  wife's  trunk, 
the  steel-bound  theatrical  trunk  which  stood  so  definite 
and  so  personal  a  part  of  her  belongings.  He  had  un- 
questioningly  and  unconsciously  respected  the  privacy  of 
that  trunk,  accepting  what  it  held  as  something  essentially 
and  personally  hers,  the  accrued  possessions  of  the  past  it 
was  her  privilege  to  cherish  and  to  screen,  if  she  so  de 
sired.  Then  he  remembered  the  little  chamois  bag  of 
jewels,  the  locked  make-up  box  which  held  them,  and  the 
carefully  tied  bundle  of  letters  which  rested  there  beside 
them. 

Then  he  looked  away,  finding  the  thought  of  spying 
inexpressibly  abhorrent.  But  still  again  his  glance  went 
back  to  the  dark  mass  of  the  trunk,  sarcophagus-like  in 
its  ponderousness,  and  still  again  he  felt  the  tug  of  sus 
picion,  demanding  that  it  be  verified  or  for  all  time  re 
jected.  Finally  he  surrendered  to  an  impulse  which 
proved  too  strong  for  him,  and  crossed  to  the  trunk  and 
opened  it. 

He  could  vaguely  foresee,  as  he  lifted  out  the  first 
make-up  box,  in  which,  he  remembered,  the  key  to  the 
lower  box  was  hidden,  that  what  he  was  about  to  do  in 
volved  the  danger  of  bringing  him  vast  misery,  of  thrust- 

248 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  249 

ing  into  his  hands  some  damning  truth  which  might  for 
ever  strike  down  what  was  left  of  his  happiness.  Yet 
the  demand  for  knowledge,  he  found,  was  stronger  than 
his  dread  of  it.  To  know,  to  be  certain;  that  was  the 
only,  the  vital,  the  essential  thing. 

Then,  as  his  search  through  the  make-up  box  ended 
and  revealed  the  key  to  be  missing,  a  surge  of  something 
oddly  akin  to  relief  swept  through  him.  Circumstance, 
less  tluid  than  his  own  will,  was  compelling  him  to  draw 
back  from  that  disheartening  prospecting  after  misery. 
And  he  was  glad  to  be  through  with  it.  Yet,  he  con 
tended  as  he  fell  to  pacing  the  room,  the  mere  fact  that 
the  key  had  been  taken  away  from  its  customary  hiding- 
place  implied  a  reason  for  its  removal.  Torrie,  suspi 
cious  of  his  own  possible  suspiciousness,  had  not  unnat 
urally  decided  to  protect  herself,  had  recognized  some 
newer  need  for  secrecy. 

He  went  back  to  the  trunk  again,  searching  it  from  end 
to  end  for  the  missing  key.  He  was  assailed  as  he  did  so 
by  a  strange  mingling  of  odours,  the  faint  smell  of 
grease-paint  and  cosmetics,  the  vague  perfumes,  from 
formless  silk  finery,  of  orris  and  patchouli  and  Apres 
Londi,  the  heavy  mustiness  of  garments  long  unused. 
They  brought  to  him  a  disturbing  sense  of  their  owner's 
nearness,  a  silently  rebuking  ghost  of  her  gazing  down 
over  his  shoulder.  But  this  did  not  deter  him.  He  was 
now  determined,  in  fact,  that  nothing  should  deter  him. 

So  fixed  was  he  in  this  purpose  that  when  he  disin 
terred  the  second  make-up  box  from  under  its  paint- 
soiled  towel  in  a  lower  tray  he  first  made  sure  that  it  was 
locked  and  then  carried  it  across  the  room  to  his  work- 
desk.  Then  he  returned  to  the  trunk,  replaced  the  trays, 
and  shut  down  the  lid. 

Before  proceeding  deeper  into  that  campaign  of  es 
pionage  he  crossed  to  the  studio  door  and  locked  it.  His 
fingers  were  trembling  a  little,  he  noticed,  as  he  took  up 
the  japanned  tin  box,  so  battered  and  stained  and  bruised, 


250  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

and  attempted  to  force  up  the  lid  with  a  knife  from  his 
kitchenette.  This  was  possible,  he  saw,  but  it  would 
leave  the  lock  broken,  the  irrefutable  evidence  of  his 
violation  of  confidence.  By  this  time,  too,  he  had  become 
calmer.  The  guile  of  the  stalker,  even  with  his  own  hap 
piness  as  the  quarry,  had  returned  to  him. 

He  wrapped  up  the  box  in  a  sheet  of  drawing-paper 
and  carried  it  to  a  Twenty-Third  Street  basement  lock 
smith,  explaining  that  he  had  lost  the  key  and  would  like 
a  duplicate.  An  uncomfortable  sense  of  guilt  crept  over 
him  as  the  locksmith  took  the  box  in  his  hand,  inspected 
it,  and  then  with  an  equally  pointed  stare  inspected  Stor- 
row.  It  would  not  be  an  easy  key  to  cut,  the  mechanic 
explained,  but  it  could  be  done  by  noon  the  next  day,  if 
the  box  were  left  with  him.  That,  Storrow  confusedly 
explained,  was  out  of  the  question.  Then  the  simplest 
procedure,  the  locksmith  retorted,  pointing  to  the  maker's 
name  on  the  lid,  was  to  take  the  box  to  the  Broadway 
store  where  it  had  been  bought  and  have  a  duplicate 
fitted. 

Storrow,  with  the  feelings  of  a  safe-cracker  burdened 
with  over-suspicious  loot,  proceeded  to  the  Broadway 
store  in  question.  There  the  box  was  promptly  fitted 
with  a  key  which  he  paid  for  and  pocketed.  Then  with 
a  quickened  pulse  he  made  his  way  back  to  the  studio. 

As  he  crossed  Fifth  Avenue  at  Twenty-Sixth  Street 
he  heard  himself  accosted  from  a  passing  taxi-cab. 

"  Hello,  Captain  Kidd !  "  cried  a  voice  close  beside 
him.  The  appositeness  of  that  salute  sent  a  tingle 
through  the  body  against  which  a  ravaged  treasure-chest 
was  so  tightly  pressed.  He  glanced  up  to  see  Mattie 
Crowder's  hectically  calsomined  face  laughing  down  at 
him  from  the  door  of  the  slowly  moving  cab.  He  re 
covered  himself  and  called  back  at  her  with  an  assumption 
of  lightheartedness  which  later  impressed  him  as  vapidly 
ludicrous.  He  was  relieved  when  he  was  once  more  able 
to  lock  himself  safely  in  the  studio. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  251 

There,  with  a  deliberation  which  was  a  mild  surprise 
to  him,  he  proceeded  to  examine  the  contents  of  the  box. 
He  found  the  soiled  chamois  bag  with  its  rings  and 
trinkets.  He  found  a  small  silver  watch  without  a 
crystal,  a  sheaf  of  newspaper-clippings  and  theatrical 
programs,  and  a  champagne-cork  with  a  date  written  on 
it,  in  lead-pencil.  He  found  a  druggist's  prescription  and 
the  dinner-card  of  a  coast-steamer,  overscored  with  un 
mistakably  clever  drawings  interspersed  with  humorous 
and  affectionate  comments.  He  found  two  reservation- 
slips,  with  the  dates  obliterated,  for  drawing-rooms  on 
the  West  Shore  Railway,  between  Weehawken  and  Buf 
falo.  Then  came  a  few  soiled  dance-favours,  the  rem 
nants  of  a  small  cluster  of  violets  which  had  once,  ap 
parently,  been  pressed  between  the  leaves  of  a  book,  and 
a  small  gold  pocket-pencil  minutely  indented,  as  though  it 
had  been  repeatedly  and  meditatively  held  between  firm 
and  pointed  teeth.  Next  came  a  photograph  of  Torrie, 
in  costume,  with  the  inscription,  "  My  first  part,"  written 
in  ink  across  the  bottom,  a  snap-shot  of  five  laughing  girls 
clustered  about  the  steps  of  a  Pullman  car,  and  still  an 
other  small  picture  of  Torrie  in  her  youth,  revealing  a 
soft-eyed  and  smooth-cheeked  girl  in  her  early  teens, 
flower-like  in  her  freshness,  with  wonder  touched  by 
curiosity  on  the  rapt  young  face  above  the  archaic-look 
ing  fichu  and  the  over-heavy  locket  that  nestled  in  its 
frills. 

The  last  thing  which  Storrow  lifted  out  was  the  pack 
age  of  letters  tied  together  with  a  cherry-coloured  ribbon. 
He  had  responded,  without  being  quite  conscious  of  it, 
to  some  law  of  dramatic  climax  which  prompted  him  to 
defer  what  promised  to  prove  the  vital  movement  until 
the  end.  He  remembered,  as  he  untied  the  tightly  knotted 
ribbon  with  the  feeling  that  he  was  opening  a  door  on  the 
past,  how  a  great  dramatist  had  once  proclaimed  the 
future  to  be  only  the  past  entered  by  another  door.  Yet 
he  was  unnaturally  calm  as  he  crossed  that  threshold 


252  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

from  which  he  felt  he  might  turn  away  a  strangely  al 
tered  man.  He  even  prided  himself  on  his  self-control, 
though  his  quickened  breathing  stood  an  acknowledgment 
of  the  tax  which  that  control  was  imposing  upon  him. 
Then  he  stopped  breathing  altogether,  for  the  first  letter 
which  he  unfolded  and  inspected  began  with  the  pregnant 
words  "  My  Beloved  Wild-Bird." 

He  read  it  through  until  he  came  to  the  signature, 
which  was  the  one  word  "  Alan."  He  read  them  all, 
page  by  page,  every  impetuous  and  passionate  line,  every 
endearing  diminutive,  every  acknowledgment  of  immense 
and  abandoned  love.  After  that,  there  was  no  more 
doubt.  Carefully  he  re-read  an  allusion  to  the  painting 
of  The  Rainy  Morning,  an  allusion  which  implied  it  had 
been  done  before  a  lover's  quarrel  with  Torrie.  It  left 
no  question  as  to  Torrie  herself  being  the  model  for 
that  canvas.  Yet  this  discovery  came  to  him  now  with 
small  sense  of  shock.  It  was  merely  one  voice  in  a  dron 
ing  choir  of  accusation.  And  he  read  on,  harvesting  his 
grim  sheaves  of  knowledge,  stopping  only  once,  with  a 
convulsive  twitching  of  the  body,  when  he  happened  on  a 
ragged-edged  sheet  of  note-paper  in  Torrie's  own  writ 
ing,  a  sheet  apparently  sent  back  to  her  in  a  moment  of 
reproof. 

"  Oh,  My  Own,  my  Belovedest  Own  who  is  All  Mine," 
she  had  written  in  her  sharp-angled  script,  though  in  this 
instance  much  less  cramped  and  pointed  than  usual.  "  I 
feel  today  that  it's  glorious  to  be  a  woman!  It's  glori 
ous,  glorious  to  be  loved,  to  know  that  you  are  in  a  man's 
thoughts,  to  remember  that  you  control  him,  even  when 
he  is  away  from  your  touch,  to  remember  too  that  he  is 
longing  for  you,  no  matter  how  far  he  goes,  you,  just 
you,  nobody  in  all  the  wide,  wide  world  but  you!  And 
it's  glorious  to  feel  yourself  in  his  arms,  and  his  eyes 
drinking  the  depths  of  yours,  when  he's  with  you  again, 
hungry  for  you,  eager  for  you,  aching  for  you!  Yes, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  253 

dear,  it's  glorious  to  be  a  woman  —  to  be  a  woman  in 
love,  and  a  woman  beloved !  " 

Storrow  sat  for  a  full  moment,  without  moving,  after 
reading  this  for  the  second  time.  Then  he  deliberately 
restored  the  sheet  to  its  place  and  just  as  deliberately 
went  on  with  his  examination.  His  movements  were 
quiet,  with  the  quietude  of  that  torpor  which  comes  from 
over-tensioned  nerves  and  over-taxed  feeling.  He  re 
fused  to  be  startled,  even  to  the  end,  assuring  and  reas 
suring  himself  that  he  had  already  discounted  everything 
upon  which  he  might  stumble.  He  imposed  upon  himself 
a  restraint  which  turned  in  upon  his  own  soul  the  fires  to 
which  he  refused  any  freedom  of  escape.  He  had  sown 
his  dragon's  teeth,  and  now  he  could  reap  the  whirl 
wind.  .  .  . 

The  one  dominant  feeling  that  remained  with  him  as 
he  tied  up  the  letters  and  replaced  them  in  the  make-up 
box  and  restored  that  box  to  the  trunk  where  it  belonged, 
was  a  feeling  of  having  been  duped,  tragically  and  colos- 
sally  duped.  Yet  even  this  impressed  him  as  pettish  and 
deficient  in  dignity,  trivial  before  the  gigantic  sweep  of 
passion  which  was  supposed  to  ensue  upon  all  such  dis 
coveries  as  his.  Beyond  this  vague  and  far-reaching 
sense  of  betrayal,  however,  he  found  the  crystallization 
of  mere  suspicion  into  certainty  to  be  shot  through  with 
a  colouring  of  relief.  He  knew  now  what  he  had  to 
fight  against. 

He  had  reached  the  stage,  in  fact,  when  he  could  stand 
forlornly  proud  of  his  self-possession.  He  even  made  it 
a  point  to  establish  his  self-control  by  returning  to  his 
work  on  the  proof-sheets.  He  held  himself  to  that  task 
with  a  will  of  iron,  going  through  them  page  by  page, 
with  a  sullen  and  self-defeating  determination.  Often, 
indeed,  he  found  his  thoughts  wandering.  But  always  he 
shepherded  them  relentlessly  back,  finding  it  necessary  to 
read  a  sentence  several  times  before  its  true  import  fil 
tered  through  to  his  mind.  When  he  had  reached  the 


254  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

last  page  he  methodically  rearranged  the  loose  sheets, 
folded  them  together,  and  sealed  them  in  their  brown 
manilla  envelope.  On  this  envelope  he  wrote  the  name 
and  address  of  his  publishers  and  affixed  an  unnecessary 
number  of  postage  stamps.  Then  with  the  movements 
of  a  man  who  was  very  tired  he  put  on  his  hat  and  coat 
and  carried  his  package  to  the  nearby  sub-station  drop- 
wicket  at  the  Eastern  end  of  the  Metropolitan  Building, 
just  north  of  Twenty-Third  Street.  He  went  through 
these  movements  automatically,  with  practically  no  mem 
ory  of  having  executed  them.  When  he  saw  that  it  was 
midnight  by  the  huge  illuminated  dial  so  high  above  him 
he  just  as  automatically  turned  homeward  again,  re 
minding  himself  that  the  hour  was  late  and  that  men  at 
some  such  hour  as  this  had  the  habit  of  going  to  bed. 

He  stopped  at  the  corner  of  Twenty-Fourth  Street  as 
he  beheld  a  lean  and  hungry-looking  cat  reaching  up  to 
the  top  of  a  garbage-can  placed  on  the  curb.  It  made  his 
thoughts  go  back  to  The  Alwyn  Arms  and  the  gaunt  and 
straining  cat  he  had  once  caught  sight  of,  through  the 
bars  of  a  fire-escape,  as  it  reached  whining  with  desire 
up  to  a  windowsill  on  which  a  pan  of  cardinal-red  lobsters 
stood  cooling. 

Then  he  thought  of  Rodin's  La  Porte  de  I'Enfer  and 
the  creatures  of  desire  writhing  and  coiling  about  that 
great  door.  He  would  satisfy  at  least  one  hunger,  he 
decided,  as  he  made  an  effort  to  catch  the  animal  skulking 
in  the  corner  of  his  house-steps.  He  would  take  it  up  to 
his  room  and  feed  it,  give  it  the  meal  of  its  life.  But 
that  harried  street-cat,  unused  to  kindness,  was  not  easy 
to  approach.  Storrow  even  followed  it  into  the  shadowed 
area  beneath  the  steps  themselves,  stooping  low  and  striv 
ing  to  disarm  its  suspicions. 

He  suddenly  stood  erect,  still  in  the  shadow,  for  a 
motor-car  had  stopped  at  the  curb  within  ten  paces  of 
him.  From  this  car  he  saw  a  man  step  slowly  down  and 
swing  open  the  door.  At  the  same  time  that  he  realized 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  255 

this  man  to  be  Donnie  Eastman  he  saw  the  second  alight 
ing  figure. 

He  knew  it  was  Torrie  even  before  he  caught  the 
sound  of  her  contented  little  coo  of  laughter  as  the 
heavily-ulstered  man  ushered  her  up  the  worn  sandstone 
steps,  with  one  hand  clasping  her  crooked  arm  at  the  elbow. 

On  the  top  step  they  came  to  a  full  stop.  No  word 
was  spoken,  but  each,  apparently  swayed  by  the  same 
impulse,  glanced  first  eastward  and  then  westward  along 
the  empty  street.  Then,  still  without  a  spoken  word, 
they  stood  clasped  for  a  moment  in  each  other's  arms. 
And  still  without  speaking  the  woman  withdrew  into  the 
darkness  of  the  house  and  the  man  in  the  ulster,  after 
standing  for  a  moment  in  abstracted  contemplation  of 
his  car,  slowly  went  down  the  steps,  lighted  a  cigarette, 
and  slithered  off  eastward  into  the  night,  with  a  ruby 
light  winking  back  as  he  bobbed  over  the  car-tracks  of 
Fourth  Avenue. 

Slowly  Storrow  emerged  from  his  sheltering  shadow, 
feeling  his  way  up  the  sandstone  steps  as  a  blind  man 
might.  He  stood  under  the  faded  door-lintel,  with  one 
shoulder  against  the  worn  and  blistered  frame,  staring 
out  at  the  brownstone  arroyo  of  blank  doors  and  drawn 
blinds  and  quavering  with  a  nauseous  ague  which  he 
seemed  unable  to  control.  It  was  not  anger  that  shook 
him.  It  was  not  shame  and  it  was  not  disgust.  It 
seemed,  at  the  moment,  a  black  and  all-suffusing  hope 
lessness,  a  hopelessness  which  left  his  body  cold  and  his 
heart  numb. 

Then  a  reaction  apparently  more  physical  than  mental 
set  in,  and  he  found  himself  burning  with  an  inarticulate 
fury  of  protest,  wave  by  mounting  wave,  until  relief  in 
action  seemed  essential.  Yet  he  fought  against  that  sud 
den  hot  thirst  to  mount  to  the  studio  and  confront  the 
woman  who  sooner  or  later  would  have  to  be  confronted. 
Before  that  encounter,  he  warned  himself,  he  must  be 
under  complete  self-control.  He  was  sure  of  himself 


256  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

now,  and  of  his  line  of  procedure.  He  could  afford  to 
await  his  time. 

He  stepped  out  into  the  midnight  street  with  a  poign 
ant  feeling  of  homelessness  gnawing  at  his  heart, 
scarcely  conscious  of  the  direction  in  which  he  was  mov 
ing.  The  sight  of  a  belated  panhandler  or  two  drifting 
eastward  along  Twenty-Third  Street  arrested  his  atten 
tion.  He  watched  those  homing  birds  beating  their  way 
towards  the  cheap  and  verminous  lodging-houses  that  lay 
near  the  East  River,  wondering  why  the  human  body, 
when  ill-fed  and  ill-clad,  ambulated  thus  with  upthrust 
shoulders  and  forward-drooping  spine.  He  himself,  he 
remembered,  would  have  to  find  a  sleeping-place  for  the 
night.  Being  without  hand-baggage,  he  sheered  away 
from  the  more  pretentious  hotels.  He  felt  the  need,  in 
fact,  of  oblivion,  of  violent  submergence  in  some  neutral 
izing  physical  discomfort,  like  that  which  comes  to  a 
distracted  ewe  flung  bodily  into  a  sheep-dip.  So,  after 
walking  for  an  hour  without  sense  of  direction  or  destina 
tion,  he  entered  without  repugnance  a  side-street  cara 
vansary  with  tiers  of  bald  little  rooms  above  its  over 
gilded  ground-floor  saloon.  There,  after  paying  for  his 
meagre  quarters  in  advance,  he  went  to  bed. 

But  he  slept  little.  When,  towards  morning,  fitful 
and  broken  slumber  overtook  him,  he  was  tortured  with 
dreams  of  lascivious  feline  bodies  swarming  and  climbing 
about  a  door  draped  with  black.  So  disturbing  were 
these  dreams  that  he  was  glad  to  open  his  eyes  and  see 
sunlight  slanting  in  through  his  narrow  uncurtained  win 
dow.  He  got  up  and  dressed  with  the  slow  heaviness  of 
an  athlete  after  a  field-day  marked  with  many  defeats, 
sore  in  body,  but  infinitely  more  bruised  in  soul.  At  the 
lunch-counter  belowstairs  he  bought  a  roast-beef  sand 
wich  and  a  cup  of  coffee.  The  sandwich  of  indurated 
beef  and  rye-bread  proved  uneatable  and  he  was  staring 
at  it  with  heavy  listlessness  when  his  attention  was  at- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  257 

tracted  by  a  short  and  wide-shouldered  Italian  with  a 
willow  basket  of  plaster  casts  swung  by  a  strap  from  his 
shoulder.  Storrow  as  he  gulped  down  his  steaming  but 
stale  cup  of  coffee  continued  to  watch  him.  The  pedlar 
was  doing  his  best  to  persuade  an  indifferent-eyed  Irish 
bartender  to  purchase  two  undraped  and  diminutive 
wood-nymphs  in  plaster-of-Paris.  But  his  efforts  were 
unavailing. 

Storrow  stopped  the  Italian  as  he  replaced  his  nymphs 
and  started  towards  the  door. 

"  Who  makes  these  for  you?  "  he  asked,  looking  over 
the  basket  of  reposing  white  figures.  They  were  very 
badly  modelled,  Storrow  saw,  mostly  nudes  and  demi- 
nudes  of  Phrynes  and  Venuses  and  bacchantes  and  bath 
ing-girls,  that  type  of  naively  pornographic  art  which 
had  so  firmly  established  itself  beside  the  barber's  mirror 
and  the  tapster's  pyramided  drinking-glasses. 

"  I  maka  dem  myself,"  the  Italian  responded,  not  with 
out  pride. 

"  Do  you  ever  feel  that  you'd  like  something  better?  " 
inquired  Storrow,  taking  up  an  obese  plaster  dryad  with 
ankles  sufficiently  generous  for  a  Hercules. 

"  Wha's  da  matter  wid  dat,  meester  man?  "  demanded 
the  Italian  as  he  resumed  jealous  possession  of  the  cast 
and  held  it  up  to  the  light. 

"  I'll  show  you  what's  the  matter  with  it,"  responded 
the  other,  taking  from  his  pocket  the  drawing  pencil 
which  he  had  the  habit  of  always  carrying  with  him. 
He  commandeered  a  segment  of  the  plaster-pedlar's 
wrapping  paper,  placed  the  cast  on  the  end  of  the  bar, 
and  with  a  series  of  quick  and  miraculous  strokes  repro 
duced  the  figure  of  the  dryad,  translating  it  as  he  did  so 
into  a  sprightly  and  slender-bodied  nymph  with  life  in 
every  line. 

The  Italian  took  up  the  drawing  and  inspected  it  with 
studious  and  seal-brown  eyes. 


258  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"You  maka  dese  t'ings  some  time?"  he  asked,  still 
artist  enough  to  recognize  artistry  in  another. 

"  Yes,  I've  made  that  sort  of  thing,"  acknowledged  the 
other. 

"  You  wanta  work,  maybe?  "  asked  the  owner  of  the 
studious  seal-brown  eyes. 

"  Yes,"  was  Storrow's  answer.  For  it  suddenly 
struck  him  as  desirable,  this  possible  chance  of  losing 
himself  in  the  maelstrom  wThich  he  could  no  longer  hope 
to  master,  of  ebbing  away  into  impenetrable  corners  where 
he  would  be  untrammelled  and  untainted  and  unknown. 

"Wat  kinda  work?"  asked  the  other,  still  skeptical. 

"  Why,  I  could  model  you  a  raft  of  these  things,  some 
thing  with  life  in  them,  something  you  could  job  out  by 
the  hundred  to  other  pedlars,  something  that'd  give  you 
a  real  business,  if  you  handled  it  right." 

"  Wat  ees  your  name?  " 

"  I'll  tell  you  that  when  I  come  to  see  you.  Have  you 
got  a  studio  ?  " 

"  Eet  ees  a  cellaire,"  explained  the  Italian,  with  his 
Latin  shrug  of  deprecation. 

"  Then  I'll  come  and  see  you,  if  you'll  write  your  name 
and  address  on  this  paper." 

Laboriously  the  man  of  the  plaster  casts  wrote  on  the 
piece  of  wrapping-paper  "  Angelo  Dellazio  "  and  after  it 
the  address-number  on  East  Eleventh  Street.  It  was 
satis fyingly  remote,  Storrow  saw,  that  cellar  work-room 
so  close  to  the  crowded  fringe  of  the  East  River. 

"  All  right,  Angelo,"  he  said  as  he  pocketed  his  slip, 
"  I'll  be  around  before  long."  And  he  laughed,  almost 
lightheartedly,  as  he  stepped  out  through  the  swing  doors. 

Yet  his  face  hardened  as  he  confronted  the  open  light 
of  the  street.  He  remembered,  with  a  tightening  of  the 
throat,  that  he  would  now  have  to  go  home,  or  to  what  he 
had  once  called  his  home.  He  made  an  effort  to  defer 
all  thought  as  to  what  stood  ahead  of  him.  He  tried  to 
concentrate  his  attention  on  the  street  scenes  about  him, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  259 

on  the  Spring-like  smell  of  the  air  which  even  city  dust 
could  not  dissemble,  on  the  immensity  of  the  city  itself, 
of  which  he  was  such  a  microscopic  part.  Then  he 
thought  of  his  modelling,  and  for  a  minute  or  two  lost 
himself  in  the  fabrication  of  a  figure  emblematic  of  that 
city.  He  thought  of  that  figure  as  a  sort  of  Sphinx,  not 
a  desert  Sphinx  of  inanimate  stone,  but  as  something  half 
tigress  and  half  woman,  crouched  above  a  pile  of  bones. 
These  bones,  he  told  himself,  were  the  bones  of  her  vic 
tims. 

Then  as  he  turned  into  Madison  Square,  he  caught 
sight  of  the  gilded  Diana  poised  high  above  her  Sevillian 
towers,  and  he  dismissed  that  thought  of  an  urban  Sphinx 
as  a  foolish  one. 


CHAPTER    TWENTY-ONE 

TWO  things  impressed  Storrow  as  he  let  himself 
into  the  studio  with  his  own  latch-key.     One 
was  the  quietness  and  gloom  of  the  building, 
after  the  stark  sunlight  and  noise  of  the  open  street. 
The  other  was  his  personal  reaction  to  this  new  environ 
ment,  prompting  him  to  move  almost  stealthily.     It  made 
him  think  of  the  big  moment  of  suspense  in  a  melodrama, 
with  the  stage  expectantly  darkened  and  that  anticipa- 
tional  hush  which  precedes  a  dramatic  outburst. 

Yet  he  found,  as  he  quietly  closed  the  door  behind 
him,  that  no  big  moment  awaited  him.  Torrie  lay  asleep 
on  the  bed,  with  her  back  to  him.  The  curtain  by  an 
opened  window  was  blowing  lazily  in  the  breeze.  A 
litter  of  lingerie  cascaded  over  a  chair-back.  A  faint 
drone  of  steam  came  from  one  of  the  radiators. 

Storrow  looked  back  at  the  bed.  The  curve  of  his 
wife's  back  reminded  him  of  the  back  of  a  sleeping  kitten. 
He  searched  the  lines  of  that  relaxed  figure  for  some 
appeasing  ugliness,  for  something  to  start  into  motion 
the  sullen  machinery  of  indignation.  But  he  stood 
slightly  bewildered,  slightly  disheartened,  by  the  aspect 
of  innocence  which  she  could  still  wear  in  her  slumber. 
About  the  soft  line  of  the  neck,  below  the  heavy  cloud 
of  the  tumbled  hair,  was  a  disturbing  air  of  delicacy. 
What  he  could  see  of  her  face  seemed  perversely  child 
like,  with  its  smooth  milkiness  of  skin.  And  even  the 
fact  that  she  could  sleep  so  soundly,  so  abandonedly,  that 
she  could  lie  so  passive  and  unresisting  before  his  eyes, 
seemed  to  blunt  the  edge  of  all  his  earlier  determinations. 

He  knew  he  would  have  to  wait. 

260 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  261 

He  crossed  to  the  small  bath-room  in  the  corner  of 
the  room  and  looked  at  himself  in  the  mirror.  He  stood 
startled  at  his  own  appearance.  He  saw  a  face  that  was 
unshaven,  dishevelled,  strangely  hard  and  bony,  with  a 
sinister  expression  of  age  and  cruelty  about  the 
red-rimmed  eyes.  He  was  not  even  clean.  He  re- 
•  minded  himself  of  a  stoker  emerging  from  a  furnace- 
room. 

Automatically  he  proceeded  to  shave.  Then  he 
stripped  to  the  waist  and  washed  the  thick  mat  of  his 
hair,  almost  forgetting  himself  as  he  splashed  like  a 
walrus  in  the  water  that  he  always  loved  to  feel  on  his 
skin.  He  was  wiping  his  eyes  with  a  heavy  bath-towel 
when  a  voice  sounded  from  the  room  without. 

"  Is  that  you,  Honey?  " 

It  was  a  soft  voice,  still  careless-noted  with  sleepiness, 
a  quietly  inquiring  and  disturbingly  friendly  voice. 

"  Yes,"  Storrow  answered.  He  could  feel  his  heart 
pound.  But  he  warned  himself  to  be  calm,  for  he  knew 
he  would  still  have  to  wait.  So  he  went  on  with  his 
towelling. 

He  was  interrupted  by  a  little  flutter  of  laughter  from 
the  open  door.  But  he  declined  to  turn  around. 

"  Why,  Honey,  you're  like  a  steel-puddler.  You're 
like  a  ship's  gunner  stripped  for  action !  " 

She  referred,  he  remembered,  to  his  absence  of  cloth 
ing  from  the  waist-line  up. 

"  Am  I  ?  "  he  coldly  inquired.  She  was  close  beside 
him,  by  this  time,  in  her  thin  crepe-de-Chinc  night-dress. 
It  seemed  like  an  unclean  and  unpardonable  intrusion, 
and  it  took  an  effort  to  keep  him  from  turning  and  fling 
ing  her  through  the  open  door.  She  reached  over  his 
averted  shoulder  for  her  tooth-brush,  with  the  unconsid- 
ering  careless  intimacy  of  the  past.  It  seemed  only  a 
morning  or  two  back  that  she  had  laughingly  caught  his 
bare  arm  between  her  two  hands  and  had  just  as  laugh 
ingly  shouted: 


262  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  And  the  muscles  of  his  brawny  arms 
Were  strong  as  iron  bands." 

But  now  when  her  elbow  accidentally  came  in  contact 
with  his  flesh  he  suddenly  flinched  away,  as  from  a  burn. 
If  she  noticed  that  movement,  she  ventured  no  comment 
on  it.  She  was  humming  a  little  as  she  reached  out  and 
turned  the  tap. 

"  What  time  did  you  get  back  last  night?  "  asked  Stor- 
row.  It  took  a  great  effort  to  make  the  question  appear 
a  casual  one. 

"  About  midnight,"  replied  Torrie,  apparently  preoc 
cupied  with  the  task  in  hand. 

"  How  did  you  come?"  was  Storrow's  next  question. 
Torrie  straightened  up  at  this,  disturbed  by  the  hardness 
of  the  other's  voice. 

"  Mattie  and  I  came  down  in  a  bus,"  she  replied,  with 
a  bored  intonation. 

"  But  a  bus  couldn't  bring  you  home,"  argued  Stor- 
row. 

"  No,  my  dear,  but  it  brought  us  to  Madison  Square, 
and  from  there  I  walked  to  my  lordly  abode." 

He  was  grateful  for  that  note  of  mockery  in  her  voice. 
It  was  food  for  his  hate,  fuel  for  his  rancour. 

"And  you  walked  home?"  he  repeated,  with  undue 
deliberation. 

"  And  without  acquiring  the  habit  of  staying  out  all 
night,"  she  coolly  amended,  beginning  to  resent  his  in 
quisitorial  efforts  at  cross-questioning  her. 

"  It  would  have  been  more  honest,  if  you  had,"  he 
cried  out,  suddenly  confronting  her. 

She  fell  back  a  step  or  two,  studying  his  face. 

"  Just  what  does  that  mean?  "  she  demanded.  It  was 
more  hostility  than  fear  that  crept  into  her  narrowed 
eyes. 

"  It  means  that  I  know,  now,  just  what  you  are,"  cried 
her  husband,  flinging  aside  the  wet  bath-towel. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  263 

"  And  what  enlightened  you  ?  "  she  asked,  her  voice 
slightly  shrill  with  scorn. 

"  You  have,"  he  shouted.  His  hands  were  shaking 
and  an  uncontrollable  twitching  took  possession  of  the 
muscles  of  his  shoulders.  The  woman  in  the  thin  night 
dress  put  down  the  tooth-brush  and  the  tube  of  dentifrice 
she  had  been  holding  in  her  ringers.  Then  she  stepped 
back  a  pace  or  two,  as  though  to  command  a  better  view 
of  him. 

"  Are  you  still  drunk?  "  she  asked,  sweeping  him  with 
her  stare  of  disgust. 

"  No,  thank  God,  I've  at  last  got  my  senses,"  he  pas 
sionately  averred.  "Oh,  you  liar!  You  liar!" 

He  thought,  for  a  moment,  that  her  retreat  towards  the 
door  had  been  prompted  by  fear.  But  she  stopped  short, 
with  her  shoulders  drawn  up. 

"  It  makes  me  sick  to  look  at  you,"  he  cried,  now  in 
the  full  sweep  of  the  passion  which  he  could  no  longer 
withhold.  But  as  he  repeated  that  cry  she  advanced 
slowly  towards  him.  Her  face  was  white,  like  paper. 
The  pupils  of  her  eyes  were  enlarged,  making  them  look 
almost  black.  Her  movements  were  tauntingly  slow  and 
deliberate.  But  her  breathing  was  quick. 

"  Keep  out  of  here !  "  he  cried,  not  so  much  as  a  warn 
ing  that  she  should  remain  beyond  the  radius  of  his  rage 
but  more  because  it  was  the  only  ground,  at  the  moment, 
on  wrhich  he  could  confront  her  with  opposition.  Yet 
he  knew  he  was  no  longer  master  of  his  own  movements, 
and  he  was  afraid  of  himself.  He  even  shrank  back,  as 
though  there  were  still  deliverance  in  distance.  Yet  she 
followed  him  step  by  step,  with  her  face  out-thrust  and 
the  challenge  of  unutterable  hate  in  her  eyes. 

"  You  steel-puddler !  "  she  gasped  out.  "  You  common 
cur !  You  coward !  Oh,  you  coward !  " 

"Keep  out  o'  here!"  he  repeated,  thickly,  foolishly. 
And  as  she  stood  with  her  face  thrust  against  his  he  flung 


264  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

out  at  her  the  one  word  he  knew  would  hurt  her  most, 
the  word  that  had  floated  so  revoltingly  up  to  his  ears  the 
first  day  he  had  ever  seen  her. 

That  word  electrified  her  into  sudden  and  feline  move 
ment.  She  struck  at  his  face,  foolishly,  frenziedly,  as  he 
made  a  last  effort  to  push  her  away  from  him,  to  get  her 
out  through  the  door  before  the  last  of  his  reason  slipped 
away  from  him.  But  she  resisted  him,  relapsing  blindly 
to  the  plane  of  blind  force,  clawing  at  his  bare  shoulders, 
scratching  with  her  hooked  finger-nails  until  the  blood 
showed  on  the  white  flesh. 

That  seemed  to  madden  him.  He  caught  her  suddenly 
by  the  throat,  sending  her  swaying  and  staggering  back. 
But  she  clung  to  him,  clawed  at  him,  panting  and  sob 
bing  with  the  fury  of  her  anger.  "  You  coward,"  she 
blubbered,  loose-lipped,  as  she  fought  against  him,  re 
sisted  him  to  the  utmost. 

But  he  was  too  strong  for  her.  Even  as  he  held  her  by 
the  firm  column  of  the  neck  some  forlorn  ghost  of  chiv 
alry  forbade  him  to  strike  her.  All  his  instincts  were 
against  striking  her.  It  was  not  what  white  men  did. 
Yet  he  felt  a  great  hunger  to  hurt  that  body  of  hers,  the 
grim  demand  to  inflict  suffering  on  it.  Repressed  im 
pulses  clamoured  for  liberation,  aborted  intentions  and 
thwarted  desires  re-arose  on  the  stirred  pool  of  his  pas 
sion.  No;  he  must  not  strike  her.  Yet  he  must  hurt 
her ;  he  must  hurt  her,  to  make  up  for  the  past. 

He  lifted  her  bodily  and  twisted  her  back  over  the  lip 
of  the  enamel  bath-tub,  in  an  effort  to  fling  her  from  him. 
But  she  was  lithe,  lithe  as  a  cat.  As  he  forced  her  down, 
vaguely  wondering  if  the  strain  would  break  her  back, 
she  tried  to  set  her  teeth  in  the  firm  white  flesh  of  his 
shoulder.  That  sudden  pain  brought  a  reaction  that  was 
unwilled  and  unconscious.  He  imprisoned  her  arms  and 
held  her  upright,  threshing  her  from  side  to  side,  shaking 
her  as  a  terrier  shakes  a  rag.  Then  her  struggles  sud 
denly  ceased. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  265 

For  a  moment  he  thought  that  she  was  unconscious. 
But  her  eyes  were  open,  he  saw,  and  her  body  was  still 
twitching.  She  stared  up  at  him,  apparently  without 
seeing  him,  limp,  passive,  inert,  no  longer  ready  to  op 
pose  him,  appearing  willing  to  endure  his  blows,  as 
though  some  black  joy  lurked  in  the  pain  he  had  been 
inflicting  upon  her,  a  stare  of  stupid  and  voluptuous  con 
tent  on  her  unclean  face. 

He  dropped  her  at  that,  in  shame,  in  disgust,  in  sudden 
humiliation.  She  balanced  along  the  edge  of  the  tub 
for  a  moment,  hung  there,  and  then  slid  limply  down  into 
the  porcelain  bath,  lying  there  full  length,  face  up,  al 
most  as  though  she  lay  in  her  coffin. 

He  stood  staring  down  at  her.  He  could  see  the  short 
sobs  that  tore  her  bosom,  where  the  thin  crcpe-de-Chine 
had  been  mauled  away. 

He  turned  and  staggered  out  through  the  door,  making 
his  way  blindly  towards  one  of  the  studio  windows. 
There  he  awakened,  for  the  first  time,  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  sobbing  aloud.  He  was  sobbing  and  gasping  with 
unutterable  self-shame.  He  had  ill-treated  a  woman, 
had  beaten  and  abused  her.  He  had  reached  the  lowest, 
the  lowest  depths  beyond  which  there  was  nothing,  noth 
ing  in  any  way  human.  He  had  at  last  touched  bottom. 

Wave  after  wave  of  remorse  welled  through  him,  melt 
ing  him  into  a  new-born  and  unendurable  storm  of  pity. 
He  went  back  to  the  bathroom.  He  stooped  over  the 
tub,  where  she  still  lay,  white  as  the  porcelain  beside  her. 
He  slipped  one  hand  under  her  shoulder,  and  another 
under  her  softly  yielding  hips.  Then  he  lifted  her  up. 
He  felt  her  weight,  cool  and  limp  and  pliant,  against  his 
body.  In  that  way  he  carried  her  to  the  bed  and  placed 
her  on  it,  very  carefully,  finding  a  wordless  relief  in  even 
that  small  service.  Then  he  moistened  a  towel  with 
warm  water,  and  wiped  the  saliva  and  froth  from  her 
face,  and  adjusted  sheet  and  blanket  and  coverlet  over 
the  bruised  body,  as  languid  now  as  a  sleepy  child's. 


266  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

He  returned  to  the  bath-room,  rubbed  alum  on  his 
scratched  shoulders,  drenched  his  throbbing  head  in  cold 
water,  and  put  on  the  rest  of  his  clothes.  Then  he  caught 
up  his  hat  and  strode  from  the  room. 

He  escaped  to  the  street,  oppressed  by  the  whiteness  of 
the  sunlight,  vaguely  afraid  to  look  men  and  women  in 
the  face,  burning  to  walk  off  the  poisons  which  were  sour 
ing  his  body,  dumbly  longing  for  the  lapse  of  time,  time 
which  alone  could  heal  such  deep  and  ugly  lacerations  of 
the  spirit. 

Yet  time,  he  told  himself,  could  not  even  do  this.  The 
wound  would  always  be  there,  for  it  was  a  wound  in  life 
itself.  It  was  too  profoundly  involved  with  the  past  to 
be  escapable. 

Hour  after  hour  he  walked  unrecognized  streets,  hop 
ing  for  the  relief  of  weariness.  But  it  was  beyond  physi 
cal  effort  to  bring  the  anaesthesia  that  he  craved.  When 
he  found  himself  back  on  Broadway,  before  one  of  those 
gaily  faqaded  restaurants  which  are  known  to  the  Rialto 
as  "  lobster-palaces,"  he  turned  in  through  the  highly 
ornamented  doorway,  remembering  that  many  a  man, 
before  this,  had  drowned  his  sorrows  in  drink. 

So  he  drank,  determinedly,  joylessly,  silently.  He 
drank  until  memory  was  dulled,  until  co-ordination  be 
came  a  matter  of  difficulty,  until  a  veil  swung  between 
him  and  the  few  impersonally  curious  figures  scattered 
about  that  place  of  nocturnal  revelry.  He  sat  there  for 
what  seemed  a  long  time.  He  sat  there  impervious  to  the 
swelling  tide  which  came  in  with  the  dinner  hour,  impas 
sive  to  their  arrival  and  to  their  departure. 

It  was  Pannie  Atwill,  adventuring  four  hours  later 
into  what  was  a  familiar  haunt  to  her,  who  stopped  before 
his  table  and  stared  down  at  him.  He  sat,  sodden  and 
inarticulate,  unable  to  reply  to  her  careless-noted  greet 
ing.  The  smile  went  out  of  her  face  as  she  sat  down  be 
side  him. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  267 

"  Say,  kiddo,  aren't  you  turnin'  this  trick  a  little  too 
often  for  a  short-horn?  "  she  inquired,  with  obvious  con 
cern.  Then,  after  a  moment  or  two  of  deep  thought,  she 
called  a  waiter,  ordered  a  taxi-cab,  and  supported  Stor- 
row's  one  arm  while  the  waiter  supported  the  other  as 
they  made  their  way  to  the  open. 

No  word  or  movement  of  protest  came  from  Storrow 
as  she  carried  him  to  her  rooms,  piloted  his  all  but  help 
less  body  up  a  flight  of  stairs  and  permitted  him  to  col 
lapse  neatly  and  contentedly  across  the  bed  towards  which 
she  had  ushered  him.  Then  she  promptly  turned  him 
over,  straightened  him  out,  and  unlaced  his  shoes.  Be 
fore  she  came  to  a  stop  she  had  taken  off  most  of  his 
outer  clothing.  Then,  after  covering  him  up  and  tucking 
him  in,  she  produced  aromatic  spirits  of  ammonia  and 
mixed  a  glassful  of  bromo-seltzer,  each  of  which  he  in 
turn  declined  to  swallow. 

"  I  guess  dreamland's  the  drug  you're  lookin'  for,"  she 
sagaciously  observed,  as  she  adjusted  his  comatose  head 
to  the  pillow. 

She  sat  watching  him,  with  an  oddly  impersonal  and 
half  satyric  light  in  her  eyes.  Yet  her  movements,  as 
she  wrung  out  a  towel  and  laid  it  across  his  feverish  fore 
head,  were  touched  with  a  solicitude  that  was  almost 
maternal.  As  he  continued  to  sleep,  she  took  off  her 
own  shoes  and  loosened  her  clothing,  making  herself  as 
comfortable  as  she  could  in  the  undulatory  Morris-chair 
beside  the  bed.  She  looked  at  her  watch,  smoked  a  cig 
arette,  and  waited.  Finally  her  head  drooped  forward, 
and  she  fell  asleep. 

It  was  almost  morning  when  she  awakened. 

"  Some  night !  "  she  murmured  as  she  inspected  the 
still  sleeping  figure  on  her  bed  and  fell  to  massaging  her 
neck,  which  suspension  over  a  chair-back  had  left  with  a 
crick.  Then  she  went  to  the  telephone  and  called  up 
Storrow's  wife. 


268  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  Say,  Torrie,  I've  got  that  man  o'  yours  here,"  she 
explained  over  the  wire.  "  I  got  him  here,  soused  to  the 
gills !  " 

Storrow,  roused  from  his  lethargy  by  the  advent  of 
Torrie  half  an  hour  later,  preferred  to  keep  the  lids 
closed  over  his  still  burning  eyes.  Even  through  the 
fumes  that  clouded  his  brain  he  was  conscious  of  an  im 
measurable  shame.  He  was  ashamed  of  his  helplessness, 
of  what  he  remembered  of  the  past,  of  his  unclean  and 
dishevelled  clothing,  of  the  sour  and  shaking  body  which 
he  was  still  unable  to  control. 

"  I  must  get  him  back,"  he  heard  Torrie's  voice  say. 
She  spoke  quietly,  almost  resignedly.  She  stood  close  to 
him,  and  yet  her  voice  seemed  to  come  from  a  great  dis 
tance.  She  was  stooping  to  pick  his  coat  and  vest  from 
the  floor  when  a  light  tap  sounded  on  the  door. 

"  That's  only  Mattie,"  explained  Storrow's  wife  to 
the  owner  of  the  room,  in  little  more  than  a  whisper. 

"Why's  Mattie  breezin'  round  so  early?  "  asked  Pan- 
nie  Atwill. 

"  I  asked  her  to,"  was  Torrie's  low-toned  retort,  fol 
lowed  by  an  inaudible  conference  between  the  three  of 
them. 

"  What'n  the  name  o'  Gawd  ever  marked  your  neck 
up  that  way?"  suddenly  demanded  the  voice  of  Mattie 
Crowder. 

Torrie  remained  silent  for  a  moment  or  two. 

"He  did!"  she  finally  said,  in  a  dead  voice. 

Mattie  breathed  a  half-whistled  note  of  surprise. 

"  Say,  Torrie,  that  neck-stab  old  Modrynski  handed 
you  a  couple  o'  years  ago  ain't  got  nothin'  on  this! " 

"  Hush !  "  said  Torrie,  with  a  quick  glance  towards  the 
bed. 

It  was  Pannie's  voice  that  broke  the  silence.  "  This 
kind  o'  takes  me  back  to  my  plumber-boy.  But  bein' 
man-handled  that  way,  Dearie,  sure  otta  be  great  f 'r  your 
Art!" 


CHAPTER    TWENTY-TWO 

STORROW  lay  in  bed,  unable  to  sleep.  He  lay 
painfully  awake,  staring  out  through  the  open 
window  at  a  star  which  hung  in  the  sky,  slightly 
above  the  black  ramparts  of  the  house-roofs  towering  as 
gloomily  above  him  as  the  walls  of  a  gaol-yard.  He 
went  back  over  his  life,  page  by  page,  with  that  imper 
sonal  detachment  which  comes  only  to  the  wakeful  after 
midnight.  And  as  he  lay  there,  deliberately  and  labor 
iously  balancing  up  the  over-complicated  ledger  of  ex 
istence,  it  struck  him  as  odd  that  the  star  at  which  he 
stared  should  hang  so  serene  in  the  midst  of  a  sky  equally 
serene,  while  he  himself  remained  so  humanly  fevered  and 
troubled  in  spirit.  Night,  he  remembered,  had  once  been 
able  to  bring  him  peace.  Sleep,  until  he  came  to  that 
great  city  of  unrest,  had  never  seemed  reluctant  to  refill 
the  lowered  reservoirs  of  vitality.  Always,  before  that, 
he  had  found  the  hours  of  darkness  ready  to  dedicate 
themselves  to  the  quiet  restoration  of  mind  and  body,  no 
matter  whether  his  pillow  had  been  a  pine-bough  or  a 
folded  Hudson-Bay  blanket  or  even  the  thwart  of  a  Rice- 
Lake  canoe.  Always  the  sigh  of  the  wind  in  tree-tops 
or  the  lap  of  water  on  pebbly  shores  had  lulled  him  away 
from  any  distractions  that  crowded  his  day. 

But  now,  with  the  nocturnal  hum  of  the  city  in  his 
ears,  he  found  no  art  to  relax  the  over-tensioned  bow. 
The  fault,  he  knew,  lay  in  his  own  heart,  sour  with  dis 
gust,  heavy  with  defeat,  tortured  with  the  thought  that 
he  had  made  a  failure  of  life.  Step  by  step  he  recalled 
his  earlier  hopes  and  aspirations,  his  older  and  cleaner 
ways  of  life,  his  more  eager  and  lighthearted  outlook  on 

269 


270  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

the  world.  He  reviewed  his  first  advent  to  the  city,  his 
meeting  with  Torrie,  his  surrender  to  the  impulses  of  the 
body,  his  quixotic  marriage,  his  aborted  attempts  at  re 
volt  against  an  environment  which  he  had  only  half- 
recognized  as  degrading,  his  mis-steps  and  mistakes,  and 
his  entrance  into  that  culminating  consciousness  of  be 
trayal  which  now  left  him  as  poignantly  alone  as  though 
he  stood  the  last  man  on  the  last  ice-floe  of  a  planet  lost 
in  space. 

A  sense  of  the  strangeness  of  earthly  things  returned  to 
him,  as  he  lay  there  as  rigid  as  the  blade  of  a  sword,  in 
remembering  the  gulfs  which  now  yawned  between  him 
and  the  quietly  breathing  body  reposing  with  such  ironic 
intimacy  on  the  same  bed  with  him.  He  was  no  longer 
swayed  by  that  earlier  unreasoning  passion  to  inflict  in 
jury  on  it,  to  impose  suffering  on  what  had  brought  suf 
fering  to  him.  His  feelings  had  merged  into  something 
more  passive,  a  vague  and  perplexed  indifferency,  a  de 
sire  for  silence  and  the  obliterating  dust  of  time,  a  hunger 
for  even  the  hope  of  quietness  and  remoteness  where  the 
healing  forces  of  life  might  in  some  devious  way  reassert 
themselves. 

He  had  sunk  low,  he  remembered,  and  had  surrendered 
much;  but  he  had  not  altogether  given  up  the  hope  of 
hope.  Somewhere,  in  the  unsleeping  core  of  his  being, 
there  was  the  trampled  spark  which  could  not  and  should 
not  go  out.  If  that  went,  all  indeed  was  lost.  In  some 
way  and  by  some  means,  at  whatever  cost,  he  must  re 
cover  his  grip  on  life.  He  must  go  back  to  the  beginning 
of  things,  grope  through  the  fog,  struggle  on  until  he 
once  more  reached  solid  and  decipherable  ground.  Some 
where  in  the  world  there  was  a  great  serenity  which  was 
being  denied  him.  He  was  meant  to  be  a  part  of  that 
serenity,  above  the  harrying  disorder  and  distractions  of 
life.  And  above  that  blind  welter,  he  felt,  must  dwell 
some  far-off  purpose,  some  larger  order  which  he  was  as 
yet  unable  to  see  in  perspective,  some  wider  scheme  of 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  271 

things  in  which  even  earthly  passion  might  find  its  reason 
and  its  redemption. 

Storrow  felt  it  to  be  there,  even  as  he  realized  that  it 
lay  beyond  his  reach.  And  his  secondary  sense  of 
frustration  brought  with  it  a  new  and  deeper  misery.  It 
left  him  apparently  mocked  at  by  the  very  God  on  whom 
he  stood  unable  to  call  for  help.  Yet  as  he  lay  there,  in 
his  silent  conflict  of  soul,  he  prayed  without  knowing 
that  he  was  praying.  He  was  unconscious  of  prayer, 
since  no  answer  came  to  those  frantic  and  only  half- 
articulate  appeals  to  the  unknown.  He  was  conscious 
only  of  his  suffering,  of  a  sleepless  tension  that  seemed 
unendurable,  of  a  feeling  of  being  prematurely  old  and 
exhausted.  The  only  tatter  of  hope  that  remained  with 
him  lay  in  the  memory  of  that  unobliterated  spark  lost 
somewhere  in  the  trodden  husks  of  his  past,  the  spark  in 
which  he  still  forlornly  refused  to  relinquish  belief.  It 
prompted  him  to  remember,  as  he  lay  there  in  his  misery 
waiting  for  the  morning,  that  even  as  the  ache  would  in 
time  go  out  of  the  body  which  had  been  so  ill-used,  so 
the  subtler  ache  would  in  time  pass  away  from  the  spirit 
which  no  longer  seemed  his  to  control. 

Yet  before  he  could  know  that  restoration,  he  felt,  he 
would  have  to  know  quietness  for  thought  and  elbow- 
room  for  reverie.  He  must  have  breathing-space  for 
both  body  and  soul.  He  must  get  away :  that  \vas  some 
thing  which  his  inalienable  passion  for  the  open  had  im 
posed  upon  him.  There  was  no  longer  any  doubt  about 
the  matter.  To  stay  between  those  walls,  in  the  old  rut, 
played  on  by  the  old  influences  and  surroundings,  was  out 
of  the  question.  He  must  go. 

He  thought  of  Angelo  Dellazio  and  his  cellar  studio 
very  much  as  a  man  dying  of  thirst  might  think  of  a 
spring  bubbling  out  of  a  hillside.  There,  he  told  himself, 
was  a  cave  into  which  he  might  crawl  with  his  wounds. 
There,  he  remembered,  he  could  know  the  consolation  of 
temporary  nonentity,  of  submerging  himself  unremem- 


272  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

bered  among  the  unknown.  And  the  more  he  thought 
the  matter  over  the  more  fixed  he  became  in  purpose. 
His  spirit  grew  quieter.  He  no  longer  dreaded  the 
thought  of  the  morning. 

When  Torrie,  waking  early,  hurriedly  slipped  out  of 
bed  and  began  dressing,  he  lay  with  his  eyes  closed,  pre 
ferring  that  she  accept  him  as  still  sleeping.  Yet  he 
found  it  hard  to  control  his  breathing  when  she  came  to 
the  bedside  and  stood  over  him.  The  knowledge  that 
she  was  staring  down  at  him  brought  a  pang  to  his  heart ; 
he  did  not  know  why.  He  was  determined,  however,  to 
betray  no  sign  of  feeling.  It  was  not  until  she  stooped 
closer,  and  with  a  movement  or  two  that  was  both  so 
licitous  and  tender  drew  the  covers  up  about  his  shoul 
ders,  that  feeling  too  strong  for  his  control  welled  up  in 
his  body.  His  eyes  were  still  closed,  but  a  sort  of  sob 
burst  from  him,  a  ghost  of  a  sob  which  he  found  himself 
utterly  unable  to  repress. 

"  What  is  it,  Honey?  "  asked  Torrie,  still  stooping  over 
him,  with  a  debilitating  little  flutter  of  anxiety  in  her 
voice. 

"  I  guess  I  was  dreaming,"  he  said,  almost  gruffly,  as 
he  made  an  effort  to  turn  on  his  side,  determined  that  she 
should  not  see  the  tears  which  were  wet  on  his  face.  He 
was  ashamed  of  his  weakness.  He  was  determined,  too, 
that  there  should  be  no  more  perilous  passage  of  words 
between  them,  though  the  stooping  woman  stood  for 
several  moments  gazing  down  at  her  husband's  averted 
head.  He  distinctly  caught  the  sound  of  her  sigh  as  she 
turned  away,  at  last,  and  busied  herself  at  the  homely 
little  duties  of  the  kitchenette.  Those  tasks,  for  some 
reason,  took  on  a  tragic  aspect,  even  in  their  triviality. 
They  seemed  permeated  with  a  colouring  of  pathos  which 
he  could  not  fathom.  Even  the  thought  that  she  was  eat 
ing  that  hurried  breakfast  alone  weighed  ponderously 
on  his  heart.  And  it  was  with  a  definite  sense  of  relief 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  273 

that  he  awakened  to  the  fact  that  she  was  making  herself 
ready  for  the  street. 

He  neither  moved  nor  opened  his  eyes  until  she  had 
taken  her  departure.  But,  once  sure  that  she  was  gone, 
he  slipped  hurriedly  out  of  bed  and  just  as  hurriedly 
dressed.  He  gathered  together  the  things  which  he  felt 
he  might  need,  packed  them  in  his  hand-bag,  and  slowly 
and  deliberately  inspected  the  studio.  Then,  with  that 
valedictory  look  still  in  his  eyes,  he  took  up  the  packed 
hand-bag  and  stepped  out  of  the  room,  carefully  and 
quietly  closing  the  door  behind  him. 

An  hour  later  he  carried  his  heavy  bag  down  the  nar 
row  stairway  leading  to  Angelo  Dellazio's  cellar  in 
Shinier  Place. 

"  Well,  I've  come,"  he  calmly  announced  to  the  plaster- 
powrdered  Italian  stooping  over  a  white-pine  box  in  which 
three  dozen  casts  of  Dante's  head  were  being  packed  in 
chopped  straw. 

But  little  more  than  blank  incredulity  showed  on  the 
face  of  the  brown-eyed  Angelo. 

"  I  mean  it,"  explained  Storrow,  putting  down  his  bag. 
"  And  you  needn't  worry  about  my  not  working.  I'll 
give  you  all  you  can  handle.  All  I  want  is  enough  to  eat 
and  a  place  to  sleep.  That's  fair,  isn't  it,  until  I  show 
you  what  I  can  do  ?  " 

But  Angelo,  as  he  stood  scratching  his  crisp  black 
curls,  had  his  doubts  about  it  being  fair  enough.  He 
studied  the  newcomer  with  much  concern,  and  then  the 
cast-covered  cellar  walls,  and  then  the  brown-tinted  bust 
of  Dante  which  he  still  held  in  his  hand.  Then  he  re 
treated  to  the  living-quarters  above-stairs  and  consulted 
with  Maria,  his  rotund  and  wren-like  wife,  who  sur 
reptitiously  inspected  Storrow  through  a  crack  in  the 
door  and  perceived  that  he  was  good  to  look  upon  and 
carried  no  obvious  ear-marks  of  a  refugee  from  justice. 

So  the  matter  was  decided,  then  and  there.     Storrow 


274  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

became  one  of  that  little  family  in  Shimer  Place  shadowed 
by  the  mottled  walls  of  tenements,  submerging  himself 
in  that  crowded  corner  of  the  East  Side  where  even  to 
hear  his  native  tongue  was  to  prove  a  novelty.  There 
he  proceeded  to  make  himself  phantasmally  at  home,  en 
tering  into  the  work  allotted  to  him  with  a  preoccupied 
ferocity  which  more  and  more  tended  to  perplex  the  mild- 
eyed  Angelo.  There,  down  the  narrow  canyon  of  a  side- 
street  a-flutter  with  multi-coloured  bedding  and  wash 
ings,  a  joyous  and  noisy  side-street  that  seemed  almost 
Neopolitan  in  its  colour  and  movement,  Storrow  saw 
Spring  come  to  the  city.  He  beheld  the  hurdy-gurdies 
emerge  and  the  Bock  Beer  signs  appear  on  the  gilt-cor 
niced  saloon  towards  the  water-front  and  the  hokey-pokey 
barrows  come  out  like  crocuses  and  swart  children  en 
raptured  with  the  strains  of  a  tarantella  dancing  like 
grass-hoppers  on  the  broken  concrete.  He  felt  the  sun 
shine  warm  on  the  smoke-stained  bricks,  and  noticed 
greens  in  the  carts  of  the  street-vendors,  and  caught  a 
ghostly  aroma  of  outland  budding  and  burgeoning  on 
the  languid  breeze  that  crept  in  across  the  East  River. 
And  down  that  echoing  canyon,  in  the  paling  afternoons, 
he  saw  the  shadows  grow  purple  and  the  golden  mist  that 
hung  over  the  city  deepen  to  a  wine-glow  like  the  wine- 
glow  that  once  hung  warm  over  his  native  mountains. 
And  if  in  his  heart  a  great  unhappiness  lay  sealed  and 
coffined,  he  struggled  none  the  less  determinedly  to  keep 
the  lid  tight  down  on  that  casket  where  his  lost  hopes 
slept. 

It  was  this  which  kept  him  so  doggedly  and  so  desper 
ately  close  to  his  work.  Angelo  saw  to  it  that  he  was 
well  supplied  with  modelling  clay  and  wax.  And  the 
new-found  maker  of  images,  freed  from  all  restraints, 
contemptuous  of  criticism,  careless  of  results,  played  with 
his  lost  art.  He  let  his  fancy  laugh,  lightly  and  cyni 
cally,  into  the  ha'penny  forms  that  were  demanded  of 
him.  He  learned  quickly  enough  from  Angelo  the  limit- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  275 

ations  in  form  and  line  imposed  upon  him,  the  necessity 
for  that  modified  pornography  which  carried  its  appeal 
to  modified  intelligence.  Yet  what  he  modelled  was 
something  more  than  the  bifoutry  whose  natural  haven 
was  the  beer-parlour  and  the  barber-shop  wall.  If  he 
approached  his  work  with  a  cynical  and  careless  hand 
he  also  brought  to  it  the  airiness  born  of  indifferency. 
And  day  by  day  he  built  up  his  models  until  there  came 
into  being  that  small  array  of  figures  which  brought  joy 
to  the  heart  of  Angelo  and  Maria  and  were  destined  later 
on  to  run  like  a  nettle-rash  across  the  country.  His 
first  figure,  The  Bather,  was  an  obvious  imitation  of 
Bouguereau,  with  the  Dellazio  influence  too  much  to  the 
front.  But  his  second  figure,  The  Direr,  caught  at 
first-hand  from  a  naked  urchin  on  the  string-piece  of 
an  East  River  wharf-end,  had  in  it  the  unsuppressed 
spirit  of  youth  and  vitality,  made  doubly  effective  after 
the  inspired  Angelo  hit  on  the  expedient  of  dipping  the 
finished  cast  in  a  stain  of  copper-brown.  Then  Storrow 
turned  to  animals,  essaying  a  figure  or  twro  which  gave 
him  much  personal  satisfaction  but  eventually  confirmed 
Angelo's  prediction  that  they  would  never  sell  like  a 
nude.  So  he  went  back  to  the  nudes,  turning  them  out 
with  a  blithe  bitterness  of  heart  born  of  the  memory  that 
he  was  prostituting  a  gift  which  had  once  seemed  sacred 
to  him.  In  this  spirit,  half  of  mockery,  half  of  shame- 
lessness,  he  created  that  poignant  little  study  known  to 
the  world  as  The  Tired  Model,  the  crouching  and 
lean-ribbed  figure,  too  pensively  youthful  and  human 
ever  to  offend  by  its  nakedness,  which  was  later  to  smile 
down  from  half  a  million  book-shelves  and  plate-rails 
and  what-nots.  And  Angelo,  seeing  that  the  work  was 
good,  prepared  his  moulds  and  mixed  his  plaster  and 
tinted  the  finished  casts,  persuaded  that  a  new  era  was 
overtaking  his  business. 

This  promise  of  trebled  trade  seemed  in  no  way  to 
interest  Storrow.    He  worked  and  lived  like  a  man  in  a 


276  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

dream.  He  ate  meals  of  spaghetti  and  sour  wine,  with 
a  braised  pullet  on  Sundays.  He  sat  trance-like  at  a 
table  where  half  a  dozen  excited  Sicilians  argued 
frenziedly  and  endlessly  as  to  condiments  and  Caruso  and 
lemon-shipments  from  Palermo.  He  ate  unknown  dishes 
savoury  with  garlic,  and  smoked  rat-tail  stogies  handed 
forth  by  unknown  companions.  For  a  holiday  he  oc 
casionally  went  with  Angelo  and  a  comrade  Neopolitan 
in  an  extremely  dirty  motor-launch  down  the  Bay,  where 
they  fished  for  eels  and  Lafayettes,  kicking  home  sun 
burned  and  tired  with  the  incoming  tide.  Once,  too,  he 
joined  his  new  friends  in  an  excursion  to  Coney  Island, 
where  he  moved  about  with  constraint  and  finally  pur 
chased  from  a  dispenser  of  holiday  souvenirs  a  small 
basket  of  woven  sweet-grass.  From  the  aromatic  fibres 
of  this  basket  he  was  able  to  extract  a  quick  but  keen 
consolation,  for  the  heavy  fragrance  of  sweet-grass  had 
never  failed  to  carry  him  back,  at  a  bound,  to  the  roads 
and  hill-sides  of  his  native  province.  But  all  the  time, 
during  that  outing,  he  watched  Midway  and  street-crowd 
and  bathing-beaches  with  apprehension,  secretly  dreading 
that  some  friend  from  his  old  world  might  chance  to 
confront  him  with  startled  and  accusatory  eyes. 

That  emissary  from  his  old  world,  in  fact,  came  to 
him  much  more  abruptly  and  bewilderingly  than  he  had 
counted  on.  He  came  a  week  later,  in  the  form  of 
Modrynski  himself,  who  made  his  way  creakingly  and 
wheezingly  down  Dellazio's  narrow  stairway  and  con 
fronted  Storrow  as  the  latter  stood  at  the  iron  sink  wash 
ing  up  after  his  morning's  work. 

"  I  salute  you,  sir,"  said  Modrynski  with  his  stately 
yet  half  satyric  bow.  And  Storrow,  without  speaking, 
stood  staring  at  his  enemy  of  other  days.  It  seemed  a 
very  long  time  ago,  since  they  had  faced  each  other. 

"  And  I  must  further  inquire,"  continued  Modrynski 
as  he  took  a  parcel  wrapped  in  tissue-paper  from  under 
his  caped  coat,  "  if  this  happens  to  be  your  work?  " 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  277 

Storrow  saw  the  tremulous  old  fingers  tear  away  the 
folds  of  tissue-paper,  revealing  one  of  Angelo's  freshly 
minted  casts  of  The  Tired  Model. 

"  It  is,"  acknowledged  Storrow. 

"  I  thought  so,"  said  the  older  man,  moving  his  head 
slowly  from  side  to  side,  for  all  the  world  like  a  Polar 
bear  in  a  zoo-cage.  "  And  to  run  down  the  perpetrator 
of  that  enormity,  sir,  has  taken  three  whole  days  of  my 
time!" 

"  Then  why  bother  about  it?  "  demanded  Storrow,  with 
imperfectly  masked  antagonism.  He  was  troubled,  at 
the  moment,  with  none  too  happy  memories  of  earlier 
comments  on  his  art  work. 

"Why  bother  about  it?"  repeated  Modrynski,  undis 
turbed  by  the  other's  hostility.  "  Because  behind  all  its 
badness,  my  dear  young  misanthrope,  behind  all  its  mis 
placing  of  muscles  and  false  marshalling  of  masses,  is 
enough  of  the  breath  of  life  to  compel  a  man  who  has 
grown  old  in  the  search  of  beauty  to  respect  its  creator." 
He  turned,  for  the  first  time,  and  stared  slowly  about  the 
crowded  and  cast-littered  chamber.  "  But  what,  in  the 
name  of  God,  are  you  doing  in  a  catacomb  like  this?" 

"  I'm  living  my  own  life,"  averred  Storrow,  meeting 
the  older  man's  sunken  and  ochre-framed  eye.  Still 
again,  and  even  through  the  fogs  of  hostility,  he  could 
detect  the  beauty  of  that  unageing  eye,  full-coloured  and 
deep  and  limpid  in  the  midst  of  the  yellowed  and  wrinkled 
face. 

"  You  mean  burying  your  life,"  countered  Modrynski, 
with  yet  another  stare  about  the  room.  "  And  the  in 
terring  of  that  which  is  still  alive  impresses  me  as  not 
only  a  calamity,  but  as  a  crime,"  he  added  with  slow 
deliberation,  as  he  seated  himself  on  one  of  Angelo's 
cases  of  plaster  images. 

"  It's  at  least  my  own,"  retorted  Storrow,  plainly  with 
no  wish  to  prolong  the  interview.  But  Modrynski  was 
not  to  be  shaken  off. 


2?8  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  Not  altogether,"  he  meditatively  reminded  the  other 
man.  Then  he  stood  up  again.  "  There's  Torrie,  you 
know.  And  I  feel,  sir,  that  you  have  not  been  quite  fair 
to  her." 

It  was  a  full  moment  before  Storrow  spoke  again. 

"  I'll  be  obliged  if  you'll  not  discuss  my  wife,"  he 
finally  declared. 

Again  the  eyes  of  the  two  men  met.  It  was  only  the 
face  of  the  older  man  that  carried  any  touch  of  gentle 
ness. 

"  But  I'm  afraid  we  are  compelled  to  discuss  her," 
contended  Modrynski,  the  slight  foreign  intonation  of 
his  voice  seeming  to  give  a  touch  of  impersonality  to  a 
statement  still  essentially  personal.  "  And  Torrie  is  a 
girl  very  dear  to  my  heart." 

"  I've  had  considerable  evidence  of  that,"  was  Stor- 
row's  quick  and  embittered  retort. 

The  deep-set  eyes  gazed  unwaveringly  out  of  the  faded 
old  face,  as  meditative  and  melancholy  as  an  eagle's. 

"  I  am  complimented  by  your  jealousy,  my  lad,  even 
while  I  am  compelled  to  acknowledge  that  it  is  unjust," 
Modrynski  quietly  replied.  "  In  two  years  I  shall  be 
seventy.  I  am  an  old  man.  And  time,  you  must  re 
member,  brings  its  immunities.  You  are  young,  and 
your  blood  is  hot  —  and  for  that  I  envy  you.  But  I  who 
am  old  have  learned  to  know  that  no  problem  is  solved  by 
running  away  from  it." 

"  I've  been  conscious  of  no  particular  problem  con 
fronting  me,"  contended  the  younger  man. 

"  But  there  is  a  problem.  I  know  that,  now,  as  I  see 
the  unhappiness  in  your  face.  Women,  of  course,  should 
be  accidents,  and  only  accidents,  in  the  life  of  the  true 
artist.  But  that  is  something  we  keep  failing  to  remem 
ber.  We  also  sometimes  fail  to  remember  that  it  is  the 
woman  of  beauty  and  warmer  blood,  the  woman  of  keen 
feeling  and  quick  impulses,  who  first  affects  and  inflames 
us.  That  woman's  life  must  be  kept  full.  It  is  the  rich 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  279 

soil  that  cannot  He  fallow  or  barren.  It  must  be  a  garden 
of  quiet  rapture,  or  a  riot  of  weeds.  And  if  we  fail  to 
meet  her  demands  and  keep  full  her  life,  we  must  not  be 
surprised  if  she  is  driven  to  seek  consolation  from  other 
sources." 

"  What  are  you  driving  at?  "  was  Storrow's  brusk  de 
mand. 

"  I  am  driving  at  nothing,"  Modrynski  responded  with 
carefully  maintained  deliberateness.  "  I  am  merely  at 
tempting  to  point  out  to  you  that  at  a  time  like  this  your 
place  is  at  your  wife's  side." 

Storrow  swung  about,  trying  to  dissemble  the  creeping 
chill  in  his  blood  by  a  show  of  anger. 

"  There  seem  to  be  a  number  of  persons  actively  nurs 
ing  the  same  conviction,"  was  his  almost  passionate  re 
tort. 

"  Precisely,"  coldly  admitted  the  older  man.  "  And 
that  is  what  has  given  me  the  courage  to  search  you  out 
and  suggest  to  you  the  possibility  of  disputing  their 
claim." 

"  But  I  have  no  intention  of  disputing  their  claim," 
cried  the  other. 

Modrynski,  still  studying  the  younger  man's  face, 
slowly  buttoned  up  the  voluminous  caped  overcoat. 

"  All  such  final  decisions  must,  of  course,  remain  with 
you.  But  having  done  what  I  conceived  to  be  my  duty, 
I  can  now  bid  you  good-morning,  sir,  and  take  my  de 
parture." 

Yet  in  taking  his  departure,  with  creaking  steps  and  a 
pathetic  effort  at  bravado  in  the  brokenly  hummed  air 
from  "  Rigoletto,"  Modrynski  took  away  with  him  the 
last  of  Storrow's  laboriously  fabricated  peace  of  mind. 
It  was  like  the  tearing  open  of  a  wound  but  half  healed. 
It  brought  the  thought  of  his  wife  torturingly  back  to 
him.  It  reminded  him  that  his  immersion  in  a  trivial 
slum-cellar  occupation  was  nothing  more  than  an  armis 
tice,  an  interregnum  of  false  tranquillity,  a  burrowing  of 


28o  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

the  head  of  misery  beneath  the  sands  of  self-deception. 
Yet  he  fought  against  remembrance,  just  as  he  fought 
against  the  recurring  picture  of  Torrie,  of  Torrie  as  a 
latter-day  Penelope  without  either  the  fortitude  or  the 
distaff  of  her  old-world  sister.  He  struggled  to  am 
buscade  himself  behind  a  barrier  of  frantically  engineered 
activities,  persuading  Angelo  to  give  him  an  upstairs 
room  where  the  light  would  permit  him  to  work  directly 
from  models,  arguing  that  he  must  attempt  figures  in 
life  size,  must  try  for  something  bigger  and  better  than 
plaster  cupids  and  coffee-tinted  busts  of  Columbus. 

So  Angelo,  compliant  but  perplexed,  brought  frame 
work  and  chicken  wire  and  wax  and  plaster  for  sketch 
models  and  a  screen  behind  which  swarthy  young  women 
not  averse  to  posing  pour  I' ensemble  might  decently  dis 
robe.  And  Storrow  worked  with  a  fever  in  his  fingers 
almost  as  mad  as  the  fever  in  his  blood.  But  the  re 
sults,  as  a  whole,  were  disappointing.  They  were  fore 
ordained  to  be  such.  For  Art,  Storrow  wistfully  re 
membered,  was  something  more  than  an  antipyretic, 
something  beyond  a  mere  cooling  immersion  for  over- 
fevered  minds  and  bodies.  In  thinking  too  much  about 
forgetting  the  past,  he  forgot  that  over-exacting  mistress 
who  must  demand  all  or  nothing.  His  accumulating  con 
sciousness  of  defeat,  too,  was  complicated  with  a  keen  yet 
indeterminate  longing,  an  ache  which,  incongruous  as  it 
seemed,  established  itself  as  something  much  more  physi 
cal  than  it  was  mental.  To  keep  his  mind  on  his  work 
was  out  of  the  question.  The  nudity  of  even  a  profes 
sional  model  became  repugnant  to  him.  It  brought  back 
memories  that  were  over-disturbing.  And  he  slowly 
awakened  to  the  fact  that  a  change  of  some  sort  was 
inevitable,  though  he  stood  unable  to  apprehend  even  the 
nature  of  that  change. 

In  his  restlessness,  one  night,  he  accompanied  Angelo 
and   Maria  to   a   diminutive   Italian  theatre  in  Varick 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  281 

Place.  It  was  little  more  than  a  beer-hall  with  "  En- 
trata  Libera "  inscribed  above  its  soiled  and  dingy  en 
trance,  but  on  that  night,  Angelo  fierily  protested,  a  com 
patriot  of  his  named  Zacconi  was  to  sing,  an  artist  of  the 
first  water,  a  genius  with  a  voice  of  gold,  who  should  have 
been  holding  out  at  the  San  Carlo  and  La  Scala,  but  for 
an  unfortunate  love-affair  complicated  with  a  stilettoed 
rival  and  a  somewhat  peremptory  flight  to  South  Amer 
ica. 

The  artist  of  the  first  water,  in  that  hot  and  crowded 
little  hall  where  the  audience  thumped  its  approval  with 
beer-mugs  on  table-tops  and  the  air  was  heavy  with  garlic 
and  tobacco,  proved  to  be  a  fat  and  attitudinizing  tenor 
whose  voice  of  gold  altogether  failed  to  impress  the 
morose-eyed  Storrow.  He  was  effecting  an  early  es 
cape,  in  fact,  when  he  was  arrested  by  a  second  singer 
who  stepped  out  on  the  narrow  stage,  a  girl  in  a  short 
pink  skirt  and  little  else,  a  tired-eyed  girl  with  a  Greek 
profile  and  a  heavily  rouged  and  powdered  face.  He 
dropped  into  an  empty  chair  as  she  sang  Monzzocci's 
E  Piscatori.  It  appealed  to  him  in  a  way  which  he  could 
not  fathom,  and  he  forgot  the  garlic  and  tobacco  and  the 
sawdust  on  the  floor.  It  took  him  back  to  other  clays, 
to  the  spring  of  life,  to  the  time  when  he  too  could  be  as 
lighthearted  as  the  young  Italian  fruit-vendor  and  his 
downy-cheeked  sweetheart  across  the  aisle  from  him. 
Then  the  girl  on  the  stage  was  joined  by  the  Zacconi  of 
the  golden  voice,  and  together  they  sang  a  French  duet, 
a  suggestive  and  risque  song  in  which  the  rotund  tenor 
pressed  the  tired-eyed  girl  in  the  short  pink  skirt  to  his 
bosom.  And  for  the  second  time  Storrow  was  about  to 
make  his  escape  in  disgust,  when  he  was  pushed  quietly 
back  into  his  chair  by  a  thin  white  hand. 

When  he  looked  up  he  beheld  Pannie  Atwill  demurely 
seating  herself  at  the  other  side  of  his  scarred  and  mot 
tled  little  table. 


282  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"Hello,  you  mutt!"  she  coolly  murmured,  unedging 
the  bluntness  of  that  salutation  by  the  softness  of  her 
smile. 

"  Hello,"  was  Storrow's  startled  and  altogether  in 
adequate  reply,  as  he  followed  Pannie's  stare  about  to  the 
door  at  the  back  of  the  hall. 

Towards  that  portal  she  nodded  a  diffident  and  ex 
planatory  head. 

"  I  just  sent  that  Pittsburg  white-goods  buyer  I  was 
showin'  the  sights  to  off  to  dig  me  up  a  dozen  American 
Beauties  or  the  night  was  ended.  Which  same  ought  'o 
keep  him  busy  sloothin  out  a  flower-shop  for  the  next 
half-hour  or  so.  Where' re  you  livin'  now?  " 

"  I  don't  pretend  to  be  living,"  was  Storrow's  non 
committal  retort. 

"  Certainly  not  like  a  white  man,'1  asserted  Pannie,  with 
a  suddenly  sobered  face. 

"Just  what  do  you  mean  by  that?"  demanded  the 
other,  touched  with  wonder  at  the  memory  of  how  des 
tiny  had  interwoven  his  career  with  this  painted  and 
pert-eyed  child  of  the  chorus. 

"  I  mean  anything  you  want  to  make  it  mean,"  was  her 
reply.  "  But  if  you're  nursin'  any  doubts  as  to  what 
I'm  drivin'  at  I'll  blink  the  bromide  by  explainin'  that 
you  don't  impress  me  as  treatin'  Torrie  Throssel  as  I'd 
expect  a  white  man  to  treat  her."  She  smiled,  almost 
wearily  at  his  quick  movement  of  protest.  "  Oh,  no ; 
you  can't  flag  me  off  the  landscape  that  light  and  airy 
way,  at  least  not  until  I  spill  a  little  of  the  chin-goods 
I've  been  gatherin'  up  for  you.  I've  been  in  on  this 
bonehead  play  from  the  first,  and  I'm  entitled  to  speak 
a  few  kind  words,  now  I've  collared  the  chance." 

"  Words,  Pannie,  won't  do  the  slightest  good  in  the 
world,"  Storrow  announced  to  her,  out  of  a  sudden  vast 
weariness  of  soul  which  seemed  too  profound  to  plumb. 
And  Pannie,  for  a  moment,  sat  regarding  him  with 
studious  and  contemplative  eyes. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  283 

"  You  don't  strike  me  as  lookin'  any  too  scrumptious," 
she  impersonally  remarked. 

"  Perhaps  I'm  not  feeling  that  way,"  he  countered. 

"  And  what's  the  answer  ?  "  she  pertly  demanded. 

"  That's  something  it  would  be  only  a  waste  of  time  to 
discuss,"  he  told  her. 

"  I  can't  see  that  hidin'  away  from  it  has  helped 
much,"  she  coolly  amended.  It  was  not  the  flash  of  con 
tempt  from  her  eyes  that  hurt  him.  What  wounded  him 
deepest  was  her  ill-concealed  kindliness  of  intent.  And 
at  that  particular  time  he  was  asking  for  neither  pity  nor 
help. 

"  Debating  about  it  would  have  the  same  drawback," 
he  asserted  in  self-defence. 

She  looked  him  up  and  down,  appraisingly. 

"  Well,  you  can  at  least  wise  me  up  on  one  thing : 
Do  you  intend  to  take  the  full  count  ?  " 

He  had  to  acknowledge  his  failure  to  understand  what 
she  meant. 

"  When  a  game  gink  goes  to  the  mat,"  she  said  by  way 
of  explanation,  "  he  sweats  blood  to  get  up  on  his  feet 
again  b'fore  they  count  him  out,  for  good.  When  he  lays 
down  and  takes  it  like  a  dead  man,  they  say  he's  taken 
the  count.  Have  you?" 

That  uncouth  hand,  insinuating  itself  about  the  roots 
of  his  soul,  was  anything  but  a  welcome  intrusion  to 
Storrow.  But  he  stood  without  the  power  to  repel  it. 

"  Let  me  tell  you  something  straight,"  went  on  his 
calm-eyed  tormentor.  "  I  know  Torrie  about  as  well 
as  anybody  on  Gawd's  green  earth.  She's  alive  and 
warm-blooded  and  eager  f'r  the  joy  o'  livin'.  She  never 
was  a  dead  one.  If  the  right  man  doesn't  fill  her  life, 
there's  goin'  to  be  others  to  step  in  and  turn  the  trick. 
But  it's  got  'o  be  filled;  it's  got  'o!  And  just  now 
there's  a  guy  or  two  breakin'  their  necks  to  persuade  her 
you've  thrown  her  down,  for  good.  She  doesn't  want 
to  believe  'em.  She's  tryin'  not  to  believe  'em.  But 


284  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

women  are  women,  son,  and  there's  a  time  when  they  get 
tired  o'  waitin'  for  the  right  man  to  say  the  right  word. 
And  if  you  ain't  got  the  answer  she's  waitin'  for  about 
your  person,  somebody  else  is  goin'  to  beat  you  to  it !  " 

"  Somebody  else,  I'm  afraid,  has  already  beaten  me  to 
it,"  he  deliberately  announced.  He  tried  to  speak 
calmly,  but  it  disturbed  him  more  than  he  imagined  to 
find  Pannie  Atwill  presenting  to  him  a  rechauffe  of  the 
same  dish  which  Modrynski  had  already  held  out  to 
him. 

"  Do  you  know  what's  the  matter  with  you?  "  Pannie 
was  demanding,  with  a  sudden  show  of  scorn.  "  The 
trouble  with  you  is  that  you  ain't  old  enough  to  know 
how  to  handle  a  woman.  Old  Dave  was  right ;  a  guy's 
got  'o  pass  forty  before  he  finds  out  how  to  treat  'em 
right!  All  you  young  cubs  think  about  is  yourself,  and 
your  own  feelin's,  and  your  own  sore  thumbs.  You're 
too  wrapt  up  in  what  you  want,  to  bother  much  about  the 
woman,  and  whether  you're  makin'  her  happy  or  not. 
You're  frettin'  too  much  about  what  you're  gettin'  out  of 
it  to  stop  and  inquire  if  there's  anything  big  or  fine  in 
the  way  you're  treatin'  the  other  party !  " 

On  the  narrow  stage  at  the  far  end  of  the  smoke-filled 
room  the  girl  in  the  short  pink  skirt  was  singing  the 
Musetta  Waltz  from  Bohcme.  Storrow  heard  it  and  yet 
failed  to  hear  it,  for  he  sat  there  beside  the  grave  of  his 
lost  hopes,  sabering  himself  with  the  self-questionings 
of  the  unhappy,  demanding  of  himself  if  indeed  it  could 
be  true  that  much  of  the  fault  could  lay  with  him,  for 
lornly  inquiring  if  there  were  not  still  some  path  which 
might  lead  him  back,  back  to  the  older  and  happier  days, 
back  to  some  St.  Marten's  Summer  of  contentment  with 
even  less  of  rapture  and  more  of  wisdom  in  it.  Then 
came  an  abysmal  sense  of  loneliness,  sweeping  over  him 
black  wave  by  wave,  leaving  him  with  a  desolating  con 
sciousness  of  estrangement  from  the  things  after  which 
he  had  once  hungered. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  285 

"  But  I  can't  find  any  reason  for  treating  the  other 
party,  as  you  express  it,  in  any  other  way,"  he  finally 
asserted,  in  his  inadequate  gesture  of  self-defence. 

"  Then  what're  you  goin'  to  do  about  it?  "  demanded 
the  girl  on  the  other  side  of  the  table. 

"  About  what?  "  parried  Storrow. 

"  About  your  wife  and  family,"  said  Pannie,  with 
great  deliberation. 

"  My  wife  and  family?  "  repeated  Storrow  as  his  gaze 
came  to  rest  on  Pannie's  rouged  face.  The  interrogative 
blankness  of  his  eyes  seemed  to  puzzle  her  for  a  moment 
or  two. 

"  You  ain't  tryin'  to  tell  me,"  she  asked  as  she  leaned 
impressively  forward  across  the  table,  "  that  you  haven't 
been  hep  to  what's  happened?" 

"  Hep  to  what's  happened?  "  he  still  repeated,  as  their 
glances  locked. 

"You  knew  Torrie  was  caught?"  demanded  Pannie, 
with  narrowed  and  accusatory  eyes. 

"  Caught?  What  do  you  mean  by  caught?  "  asked  the 
other.  His  bland  ignorance  of  the  idiom  of  her  world 
seemed  to  exasperate  Pannie. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say,"  she  slowly  intoned,  "  that  you 
didn't  know  Torrie  was  going  to  have  a  baby?  That  in 
five  or  six  months  you'd  be  havin'  something  to  walk  the 
floor  with  ?  " 

Slowly  the  colour  ebbed  out  of  Storrow's  face.  He 
sat  for  a  full  minute  without  moving,  with  his  unseeing 
eyes  on  the  face  of  the  girl  who  abstractedly  took  a 
powder-paper  from  her  silver  vanity-case  and  with  it 
dusted  her  retrousse  young  nose. 

"That  isn't  true?"  he  murmured,  with  a  look  that 
was  half  horror  and  half  incredulity  still  in  his  stricken 
eyes. 

Pannie  snapped  shut  her  vanity-case. 

"  Of  course  it's  true,"  she  said  as  she  leaned  in  over 
the  table  again.  "  And  while  I've  got  the  chance  I  want 


286  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

to  plant  one  bee  in  your  bonnet.  If  you  intend  to  play 
ostrich  after  you've  brought  this  on  Torrie,  you're  yel 
lower  than  any  real  man  I  ever  knew.  And  that's  about 
all  for  tonight,  Capt'n  Kidd,  for  I  see  my  Pittsburg  gink 
over  there  with  what  looks  like  a  coffin  under  his  arm, 
and  I  guess  we'll  be  ramblin'  on  to  where  the  lights  are 
white!" 


CHAPTER   TWENTY- THREE 

STORROW,  after  a  night  of  troubled  thought,  knew 
that  he  would  have  to  go  back  to  Torrie.  He  was 
reluctant  to  acknowledge  it,  even  to  himself.  Yet 
he  began  to  realize  that  it  would  be  useless  to  combat 
further  those  combined  currents  of  impulse  and  obliga 
tion  carrying  him  back  to  the  older  order  of  things.  He 
was  the  prey  of  feelings  too  powerful  for  his  own  will. 
And  he  was  tired  of  passivity,  tired,  too,  of  the  tedium 
of  suspended  action. 

But  he  stood,  as  yet,  convinced  of  nothing,  of  nothing, 
at  least,  beyond  the  knowledge  that  the  present  situation 
had  become  unendurable.  He  could  not  stay  on  with 
Angelo.  That  was  out  of  the  question.  And  he  could 
not  go  back  to  the  old  order  without  beholding  there  vast 
and  calamitous  changes.  There  was,  in  fact,  no  such 
thing  as  the  old  order.  Yet  he  must  go  back  to  what  was 
left  of  it.  It  would  be  still  another  compromise  imposed 
upon  him  by  life.  But  it  was  a  compromise  for  the  sake 
of  survival  —  and  to  survive  was  still  a  final  and  sullen 
instinct  with  him.  The  trampled  spark,  he  told  himself, 
must  not  go  entirely  out.  .  .  . 

It  was  not  until  his  taxi-cab  swung  from  Lexington 
Avenue  into  Twenty-Fourth  Street  that  he  thought 
primarily  of  Torrie  and  her  predicament.  That  brought 
to  him  a  less  ponderable  sense  of  disturbance,  an  inde 
terminate  feeling  of  guilt  touched  with  pity,  a  shadowy 
consciousness  of  incompetence  shot  through  with  the  twi 
light  hope  of  vague  renewals,  a  hunger  to  make  amends 
and  reconstruct  what  was  threatening  to  fall  into  ruins. 
There  was  the  need  now  for  some  newer  outlook.  Fate 
had  reached  out  its  iron  hand  and  linked  him  up  with 

287 


288  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

the  chain  of  life.  A  child  was  to  be  born  to  him,  bone  of 
his  bone,  flesh  of  his  flesh. 

Storrow  stopped  short.  He  could  not  even  be  sure 
of  that.  Deception,  he  remembered,  could  only  too 
easily  extend  to  those  over-vulnerable  frontiers.  And 
he  found  himself  groping  with  frantic  misery  back  into 
the  immediate  past,  measuring  the  months  and  weeks, 
reviving  and  reviewing  the  days  which  aligned  them 
selves  before  him  as  the  days  of  peril.  Yet  he  emerged 
from  that  feverish  inspection  thinly  fortified,  persuaded 
that  his  suspicions  were  groundless,  must  be  groundless. 
His  thoughts,  in  fact,  reverted  to  certain  vivid-memoried 
scenes  of  Torrie  lying  passive  and  heavy-lidded  in  his 
arms.  Once  she  had  even  rested  there  sobbing,  appar 
ently  without  rhyme  or  reason.  But  it  was  only  now 
that  he  realized  they  had  not  been  free  agents  adventuring 
along  the  paths  of  desire.  They  had  been  the  toys  of 
Nature  warping  and  bending  them  to  her  implacable  de 
mands,  playing  on  them  for  her  own  subterranean  and 
dissembled  ends.  And  as  he  climbed  the  gloomy  old 
stairs  that  led  back  to  his  studio  he  found  it  momentarily 
impossible  to  think  of  Torrie  as  his  enemy  and  his  be 
trayer.  He  thought  of  her  more  as  a  straw  blown  in  the 
wind,  as  something  hunted  and  harried  down  the  aisles 
of  destiny,  as  something  so  fragile  that  it  stood  touched 
with  pathos,  as  something  to  be  pitied. 

His  heart  was  beating  fast  as  he  took  out  his  pass-key 
and  opened  the  door.  For  that  threshold,  he  felt,  was 
the  Rubicon  of  his  life.  Yet  about  his  movements  as  he 
closed  the  door  behind  him  was  an  aspect  of  deliberation, 
of  judicial  quietness,  strangely  at  variance  with  the 
tumult  in  his  quick-pounding  heart. 

The  first  thing  he  saw  was  Torrie.  He  saw  her  seated 
in  the  faded  and  familiar  green-backed  chair,  with  the 
milky  softness  of  her  face  and  throat  accentuated  by  the 
darkness  of  her  tumbled  hair.  She  was  leaning  forward, 
relaxed,  with  her  knees  apart,  in  the  midst  of  darning  a 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  289 

pair  of  black  silk  stockings.  Down  the  leg  of  one  stock 
ing  Storrow  could  see  her  drop  the  broken  door-knob 
which  she  used  for  such  purposes.  He  could  see  her 
work  this  knob  into  the  toe  of  the  stocking,  and  then  ply 
her  needle  across  the  white  dimple  of  glazed  porcelain 
that  showed  through  the  worn  silk. 

She  looked  up,  startled  by  his  movement  as  he  stepped 
forward  into  the  room.  Then  in  almost  the  same  in 
stant  her  eyes  fell  again  to  the  stocking  in  her  hand. 
She  stared  down  at  it,  as  though  intent  on  her  work,  but 
the  hand  that  held  the  threaded  needle  remained  motion 
less. 

Storrow  felt  an  iron  band  tighten  about  his  heart, 
tighten  until  it  seemed  to  force  a  cry  from  his  throat. 
He  flung  himself  down  on  the  floor  in  front  of  her  and 
buried  his  face  in  the  skirt  that  hung  loose  between  her 
relaxed  knees.  He  did  not  know  why  he  was  doing  it, 
but  he  found  himself  kneeling  there  shaken  with  sobs. 
No  word  passed  between  them.  But  a  hand  was  placed 
first  on  the  bony  shoulders  so  racked  with  their  inarticu 
late  anguish  and  then  lifted  to  the  bowed  head.  She 
stroked  his  hair,  pityingly,  almost  maternally.  It  was 
not  until  he  grew  quieter  that  she  spoke. 

"  It's  all  right,  Honey,"  she  said  in  a  strangled  voice. 
"  It's  all  right,"  she  kept  repeating,  as  though  speaking 
to  a  child. 

When  he  looked  up,  at  last,  he  found  her  own  face 
streaked  with  tears,  even  though  no  spasm  of  remorse 
had  shaken  her  body. 

"  No,  no ;  it's  all  wrong,"  he  said  as  he  lowered  his 
head  and  moved  it  slowly  from  side  to  side.  He  was 
ashamed  now  of  his  tears,  and  he  did  his  best  to  control 
them.  Then  he  caught  at  her  hand,  and  clung  to  it, 
childishly,  as  though  he  were  in  need  of  sustenance. 

"I've  come  back,"  he  said,  still  without  looking  at 
her. 

"  I  knew  you  would,"  she  quietly  responded. 


CHAPTER    TWENTY-FOUR 

NOTHING  in  the  life  of  man,  Storrow  was  be 
ginning  to  learn,  was  either  absolute  or  perma 
nent.  Hope  itself  came  to  him  shadowed  with 
a  great  Perhaps,  triumph  arrived  tinged  with  defeat,  con 
quest  inextricably  tangled  up  with  subjugation.  Even 
happiness,  at  its  highest  pitch,  was  not  without  an  under 
tone  of  regret,  and  love  itself  too  often  took  on  a  colour 
ing  of  pain,  just  as  humour,  uncouth  and  incongruous, 
could  unexpectedly  return  to  rob  the  deepest  grief  of  its 
dignity. 

Pliant  as  Storrow  tried  to  leave  himself  during  the 
ensuing  days  of  readjustment,  there  were  moods  and 
moments  when  he  was  tempted  to  nurse  the  suspicion 
that  the  whole  thing  was  a  mockery,  a  studiously  sus 
tained  pretence.  Something,  he  felt,  was  wanting,  even 
though  that  deficiency  remained  undefined.  Yet  against 
this  feeling  he  fought  both  actively  and  stubbornly,  know 
ing  that  since  he  had  made  his  bed  he  must  lie  in  it.  He 
must  make  the  best  of  things.  He  no  longer  had  any 
choice  in  the  matter.  He  found  himself  thrust  into  a 
forlorn  campaign  of  reconstruction  in  which  he  was  des 
perately  resolved  not  to  fail. 

He  was  helped  in  this  resolution  by  his  newer  attitude 
towards  Torrie.  In  that  attitude  was  a  quiet  tenderness, 
a  tendency  to  be  more  deliberate  in  his  movements,  an 
autumnal  wistfulness  in  his  regard  for  her,  a  permuta 
tion  of  midsummer  passion  into  the  cooler  and  thinner 
sunlight  of  November.  This  vague  desire  for  tranquil 
lity,  for  that  peace  in  which  the  currents  of  renewal  flow 

290 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  291 

freest,  left  him  reluctant  to  talk  about  the  immediate 
past  and  the  situation  which  had  led  to  his  disappearance. 
To  discuss  that  still  seemed  too  much  like  the  reopening 
of  wounds  not  yet  entirely  healed.  But  it  was  impos 
sible,  on  the  other  hand,  to  keep  entirely  out  of  the  past, 
just  as  it  was  impossible  to  foretell  into  what  paths  the 
idlest  of  talk  might  venture. 

"  I  suppose  you  know,"  Torrie  said  to  him  one  morn 
ing,  nearly  a  week  after  his  return,  "  how  well  your 
book's  been  going?  And  the  page  the  Sunday  Herald 
had  about  your  adventures  in  the  Barren  Grounds?  " 

Storrow,  in  acknowledging  that  he  had  heard  nothing 
of  this,  could  not  repress  a  pang  of  regret  that  his  native 
land,  that  his  old  woodland  life,  that  the  sun-clad  hills 
of  his  youth,  seemed  now  such  worlds  and  worlds  away 
from  him. 

"  Chester  Hardy  says  that  book  is  apt  to  bring  you  in 
more  money  than  you  imagine,"  Torrie  continued. 

The  mention  of  Hardy's  name,  as  he  explained  that 
he  wasn't  much  interested  in  money  matters,  both  dis 
turbed  and  depressed  him. 

"  But  you'll  have  to  be,  before  very  long,"  announced 
Torrie  as  her  gaze  met  his.  She  seemed  surprised  by 
the  look  of  embarrassment  in  his  eyes.  "  Krassler  says 
he  wants  your  book  for  the  movies,"  she  went  on  in  an 
effort  to  bridge  a  silence  touched  with  discomfort.  "  He 
even  said  the  company  he's  interested  in  will  give  you  two 
thousand  dollars  for  the  rights." 

Storrow  got  up  from  his  chair. 

"Then  Krassler's  been  here?"  he  demanded,  more 
sharply  than  he  had  intended. 

"  Yes ;  he  drops  up  now  and  then,"  was  the  studiously 
indifferent  reply  from  his  wife.  Then  she  added,  as 
though  in  after-thought :  "  He  keeps  saying  that  I 
ought  to  be  back  on  the  stage." 

Storrow  did  not  seem  to  hear  her. 

"  And    how    about    Modrynski  ? "    he   asked,    almost 


292  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

harshly,  as  though  intent  on  clearing  the  board,  now  that 
the  task  had  been  begun. 

Torrie,  for  one  brief  moment,  swept  his  face  with  a 
close  and  questioning  glance,  as  though  demanding  of 
herself  the  real  motive  for  those  interrogations. 

"  I  have  seen  him  only  twice,"  she  said  with  a  carefully 
maintained  patience.  "  He  says  our  stairs  are  too  much 
for  him." 

"And  Vibbard?" 

Torrie  shook  her  head  from  side  to  side. 

"  No,  I  haven't  seen  him  since  "  She  came  to  a 
stop,  apparently  unwilling  to  recall  in  words  a  scene  still 
too  distasteful  to  her. 

"  And  how  about  that  man  Eastman?  "  continued  Stor- 
row,  intent  on  going  to  the  end  of  his  unsavoury  excur 
sion.  His  wife's  hesitation  did  not  escape  him,  ready 
as  he  stood  to  attribute  to  it  a  significance  which  could 
only  spell  anguish  for  his  own  heart. 

"  Bonnie's  been  here,  several  times,"  she  acknowledged, 
the  effort  with  which  she  spoke  seeming  to  imply  that 
she  was  forcing  herself  to  be  honest  with  an  inquisitor 
whose  right  she  could  still  question.  "  He's  been  here, 
just  as  he's  been  everywhere.  But  I  don't  think  he'll 
bother  me  much  more." 

"  No,  I  don't  think  he  will,"  averred  Storrow,  with  a 
passion  which  he  was  unable  to  control.  For  the  past, 
which  was  equally  beyond  his  control,  was  reaching  out 
its  hands  to  strangle  what  was  left  of  his  hope. 

"  Owen,"  said  Torrie,  arresting  him  in  his  febrile 
striding  back  and  forth.  "  Now  that  you've  mentioned 
these  men,  there's  something  I  want  to  say  to  you." 

"  About  them?  "  he  abruptly  demanded. 

"  Not  so  much  about  them  as  about  ourselves  and  what 
you  said  the  other  day  about  us  making  the  best  of  our 
lives.  You  still  want  to  do  that,  don't  you  ?  " 

He  stood  gazing  down  at  her,  keenly  conscious  of  the 
beauty  which  had  this  tragic  power  to  wound  him.  He 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  293 

knew,  as  he  stared  at  the  deep  and  humid  eyes,  at  the  soft: 
and  yielding  contours  with  still  so  much  of  youth  about 
them,  at  the  red  and  almost  wilful  lips  with  the  fatal 
dower  of  desire  in  their  over-vivid  curves,  that  she  was 
in  some  way  beautiful  to  the  eye,  that  she  stood  beau 
tiful  to  him  and  must  only  naturally  appear  beautiful  be 
fore  others.  The  thought  suddenly  occurred  to  him  that 
if  she  were  ugly,  if  she  were  old  and  faded,  she  might 
remain  entirely  and  indisputably  his  own.  Even  before 
his  day,  he  supposed,  men  had  wished  such  things. 

"  You  still  want  to  do  that,  don't  you?  "  she  patiently 
repeated. 

"  Yes,"  he  murmured,  conscious  of  the  inadequacy  of 
his  reply.  But  a  sudden  new  humility  had  taken  the  gift 
of  words  away  from  him. 

"  Then  what's  the  use  of  harping  back  on  the  past  and 
making  yourself  miserable,  and  me  miserable  too,  about 
what's  over  and  done  with?"  she  asked  with  her  wide- 
eyed  stare  of  interrogation,  untroubled,  apparently,  by 
the  more  complex  reactions  which  were  washing  him  back 
and  forth  along  the  shores  of  misery. 

"  It's  because  we  can't  get  rid  of  that  past,"  he  pro 
tested.  "  It's  because  those  men  still  happen  to  be  a 
factor  in  your  life,  a  factor  that  is  hateful  to  me!  " 

"  But  those  men  are  fond  of  me,  Owen.  They  like  to 
be  with  me.  They  take  me  for  what  I  am.  They  don't 
stop  to  question  every  word  and  movement  from  me." 

"  If  they  did,  they  wouldn't  be  there,"  was  his  em 
bittered  retort. 

"  There  was  nothing  so  terrible  about  them  being  where 
they  were,"  she  replied  with  more  spirit.  "  I  may  have 
been  foolish,  in  doing  what  I  did.  But  there  was  nothing 
wrong  in  it  all  —  nothing  really  wrong.  And  until 
you're  willing  to  believe  that,  I  suppose,  you'll  have  to 
keep  on  making  yourself  miserable." 

"  There  was  nothing  wrong?  "  he  repeated,  staring  into 
her  uplifted  face.  He  realized,  as  he  looked  down  at 


294  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

her,  the  impossibility  of  mere  argument  on  a  question  so 
fundamental.  It  would  be  like  trying  to  discuss  the 
Athanasian  Creed  with  an  infant.  It  would  be  as  fool 
ish  as  trying  to  talk  theology  with  a  child. 

"You  believe  me  when  I  say  that,  don't  you?"  she 
was  asking  him.  And  he  wanted  to  believe  her;  above 
everything  else  he  felt  the  need  of  that  belief.  But 
After-thought,  the  darker  sister  of  desire,  stood  forever 
at  his  elbow  holding  him  back. 

"  Oh,  what's  the  good  of  it  all?  "  he  cried  out  in  his 
despair.  "  What's  the  good?  " 

"  That's  just  what  I've  been  asking  you,"  protested 
Torrie,  in  a  tone  of  modified  triumph.  "  It's  the  future 
we've  got  to  think  about  now." 

"  The  future,  with  everything  you've  done  and  been 
piled  high  in  its  lap,"  he  none  too  happily  amended.  And 
she  sat  with  knitted  brow,  perplexed  by  that  accusatory 
cry  of  protest  which  she  could  not  quite  comprehend. 

"  I  don't  think  you  should  blame  me,"  she  finally  as 
serted,  "  for  things  which  happened  before  you  ever  came 
into  my  life." 

"  But  I  didn't  know  I  was  coming  into  that  sort  of 
life,"  he  found  the  cruelty  to  retort. 

She  sat  staring  at  him,  almost  abstractedly. 

"  Yet  you  probably  remember  how  you  came  into  it  ?  " 
she  reminded  him. 

'  Yes,  I  remember,"  he  none  too  happily  acknowledged. 

'  Then,  if  you're  so  afraid  of  my  past,  and  if  you  want 
to  keep  me  for  yourself,  as  you  pretend  you  do,  why  can't 
you  take  me  away  from  all  this  ?  " 

He  stopped  short  and  turned  about  on  her.  It  was 
something  he  had  never  thought  about.  It  was  some 
thing  which,  as  he  meditated  upon  it,  opened  wider  and 
ever  wider  vistas  of  possibility. 

"  Oh,  Owen,"  she  continued,  after  a  moment's  silent 
study  of  his  face,  "  let's  get  away  somewhere  where  we 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  295 

can  start  all  over  again!  Let's  slip  away  somewhere 
where  we  can  be  by  ourselves,  just  the  two  of  us !  " 

He  did  not  answer  her,  for  he  was  thinking  of  the 
open,  of  roads  winding  ribbon-like  through  grey-green 
valleys  mottled  with  purple  shadows,  of  sun-bathed  cliffs 
overlooking  wide  reaches  of  water  dappled  with  foam, 
of  bracken-covered  islands  where  the  partridge  drummed 
and  the  call  of  the  moose  echoed  out  of  lonely  and  pine- 
clad  hinterlands. 

"  Isn't  there  any  place  we  could  go  to  ?  "  she  per 
sisted,  as  though  that  thought  of  migration  had  brought 
a  new  purpose  and  hope  to  life.  But  Storrow  did  not 
answer  her.  He  was  remembering  how  other  men  had 
lived  down  situations  even  darker  than  his,  how  under 
new  skies  came  new  aspirations  and  energies. 

Torrie  watched  him  with  a  clouded  face,  more  hurt 
than  intimidated  by  his  silence. 

"  What  would  you  have  done,"  she  quietly  inquired, 
"  if  Donnie  Eastman  himself  had  taken  me  off  that  way? 
Would  you  have  been  glad  or  sorry?  " 

"  Did  he  intend  to?  "  demanded  her  husband,  arrested 
by  some  momentary  flash  of  recklessness  from  her  face. 

"  He  at  least  wanted  to.  And  since  I'm  going  to  be 
absolutely  honest  with  you,  I  may  as  well  tell  you  so." 

"  And  just  what  was  his  plan  for  running  away  with 
another  man's  wife?"  asked  Storrow. 

"  I  don't  think  it  quite  reached  the  planning  stage. 
But  he  said  the  Nautilaka  was  a  sea-going  boat  —  that's 
the  yacht  he  chartered  a  little  over  two  years  ago.  He 
said  we  could  go  down  to  Havana,  and  then  slide  around 
into  the  Gulf,  or  even  slip  across  to  Europe  by  the  south 
ern  route.  He  meant  it.  He  really  wanted  to.  And  I 
don't  suppose  Donnie  ever  really  wanted  anything  in  his 
life  without  being  able  to  get  it,  at  some  time  or  other." 

She  stopped  for  a  moment,  arrested  by  the  gasp  of 
humiliation  from  her  husband's  puckered  lips.  And  she 


296  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

smiled  wintrily,  as  though  able  to  garner  some  scattering 
seed  of  triumph  from  his  unhappiness. 

"  I  know  it  hurts,  to  hear  me  say  things  like  that,"  she 
calmly  acknowledged.  "  But  it  shows  you  what  a  girl 
who's  left  alone  in  a  city  like  this  has  to  face." 

"  You  mean  the  type  of  girl  that  fops  like  that  can 
buy,"  he  angrily  interjected. 

"  No,"  she  meditatively  replied,  "  it's  not  the  kind  they 
can  buy  that  they  really  want.  It's  the  kind  they  can't 
quite  reach  that  they  fret  and  worry  over  and  let  every 
thing  go  smash  just  to  get."  She  looked  up  with  an 
almost  child-like  curiosity  in  her  wide-set  eyes.  "  And 
I've  been  wondering  just  what  you'd  have  done  if  Donnie 
Eastman  had  carried  me  off." 

"  I'd  have  killed  him,"  cried  Storrow,  with  a  vehemence 
which  sounded  startling  even  to  his  own  ears. 

"  Then  you  do  care,  after  all,"  was  Torrie's  almost 
exultant  proclamation.  "  You  do !  You  do !  You 
must !  " 

He  stared  at  her,  unable  to  comprehend  the  perverse 
and  phantasmal  consolation  which  she  was  hugging  to 
her  breast.  It  impressed  him  as  a  theatricality  extended 
into  a  grim  debate  in  which  were  involved  all  the  darker 
issues  of  life.  And  he  bewildered  her  by  shrinking  back 
when  she  reached  out  a  hand  to  him.  Yet  the  nature 
of  his  question,  when  he  spoke  next,  was  even  more  be 
wildering  to  her. 

"  Would  you  be  willing  to  go  up  to  Canada?  " 

It  was  only  for  a  moment,  however,  that  the  deliberate 
and  judicial  tone  of  that  demand  chilled  her. 

"  I'd  go  anywhere,  anywhere  with  you,"  was  her  an 
swer.  And  then  she  added,  as  though  in  afterthought: 
"But  why  to  Canada?" 

He  told  her  of  the  old  Amasa  Kirkner  fruit-farm 
which  had  become  his  at  the  time  of  Augusta  Kirkner's 
death.  He  described  it  as  best  he  could,  from  the  time- 
distorted  memories  of  childhood.  She  sat,  relaxed  and 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  297 

ruminative,  as  he  explained  that  the  old  red-brick  colonial 
house  in  the  midst  of  its  pine-grove  would  be  lonely,  and 
fallen  into  neglect,  but  that  around  them  they  would 
have  orchard-lands  and  clover-fields  and  coppices  filled 
with  mourning-doves.  As  she  leaned  back  listening  to 
him,  with  violet  shadows  under  her  eyes,  she  even  sighed 
audibly  in  the  midst  of  her  languid  vizualization  of  the 
scene  which  he  was  attempting  to  paint  for  her. 

It  was  not  until  he  suddenly  announced  that  he  would 
have  to  have  a  talk  with  Charlotte  Kirkner  about  the 
matter  that  any  cloud  crept  into  Torrie's  new-found 
horizon  of  contentment. 

"What  has  she  got  to  do  with  it?"  was  his  wife's 
quick  question  barbed  with  suspicion. 

"  Everything,  unfortunately,"  answered  Storrow,  re 
membering  his  arrant  neglect  of  material  things  during 
the  past  few  months.  And  realizing  that  he  was  set  on 
that  interview,  Torrie  no  longer  actively  opposed  it. 
She  knew,  by  the  look  in  his  eyes  and  the  firmer  line 
about  his  mouth,  that  her  husband  was  resolved  on 
prompt  and  pregnant  action. 

Three  hours,  in  fact,  after  a  talk  over  the  long-dis 
tance  wire  had  assured  him  that  Charlotte  was  still  at 
Swansea,  he  was  stepping  into  the  wine-coloured  roadster 
with  which  she  met  him  at  the  trim-plotted  little  Long 
Island  station.  She  said  little,  on  the  way  home,  but 
she  made  no  effort  to  conceal  the  fact  that  she  was  glad 
to  see  him.  She  glanced  at  him  searchingly  when  he  ex 
plained  that  he  had  come  to  talk  about  the  Amasa  Kirk 
ner  farm. 

"  You  mean  the  Owen  Storrow  farm,"  she  quietly  cor 
rected.  "  Or  haven't  you  wakened  up  to  the  fact  yet 
that  it  belongs  as  completely  to  you  as  —  well,  as  this 
car  does  to  me?  " 

Beyond  that,  however,  she  troubled  him  with  no  ques 
tioning  and  no  criticism.  And  he  found  relief  in  that 
lucid  and  care- free  relationship,  uncomplicated  by  mis- 


298  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

givings  and  doubts  and  suspicions.  It  seemed  like  step 
ping  out  of  fetid  rooms  into  fresh  air. 

Nor  did  it  surprise  him,  when  she  reached  home,  to 
hear  her  declare  that  it  was  a  crime  to  waste  even  an 
hour  of  such  a  perfect  June  day  indoors. 

"  Let's  tramp  those  hills  again,  Owen,"  she  suggested, 
"  and  we  can  talk  things  over  as  we  go." 

So  they  started  out  across  the  open  country,  on  foot,  al 
most  gaily,  almost  with  a  sense  of  truancy  in  their  hearts. 
Yet  it  was  only  spasmodically  and  incidentally  that  they 
touched  on  the  affairs  of  the  Lake  Erie  farm,  for  their 
thoughts  were  elsewhere  engaged.  They  skirted  the 
parked  grounds  of  a  club-house  and  mounted  high  above 
the  vivid  green  slopes  of  a  golf-links  where  they  could  see 
flannel-clad  figures  moving  ant-like  across  the  lower 
emerald  levels.  It  was  not  until  they  had  reached  a  hill 
top  solitude  with  nothing  but  leafy  whisperings  about 
them  that  Storrow  told  her  he  was  about  to  leave  New 
York. 

"  For  good?  "  she  said,  coming  to  a  stop. 

"  Yes,  for  good,"  he  acknowledged,  with  his  gaze  fixed 
on  the  sweeping  line  of  the  Sound,  as  clean  and  hard  as 
the  curving  blade  of  a  simitar. 

"  And  that's  why  you're  going  up  to  the  farm  ?  "  she 
asked,  suddenly  moved  by  the  look  of  desolation  in  his 
eyes. 

He  nodded,  and  her  face  became  grave.  Then  into 
her  questioning  eyes  leaped  a  light  which  he  had  seen 
there  before,  a  light  of  which  he  was  almost  afraid. 

"  Owen,"  she  said,  out  of  the  silence  which  had  fallen 
over  them  both.  "  Supposing  I  asked  you  to  take  me 
up  there  with  you.  What  would  you  say?" 

She  spoke  quietly,  yet  he  noticed  that  the  colour  had 
faded  out  of  her  face.  It  had  been  unfair,  he  suddenly 
realized,  to  hold  back  what  he  should  have  told  her  be 
fore.  And  now  it  was  going  to  be  very  hard  to  explain. 
It  was  going  to  be  almost  impossible  to  explain. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  299 

"  No,"  she  called  out,  with  a  quick  and  warning  ges 
ture.  "  Don't  say  it !  "  The  colour  had  flowed  back 
into  her  face,  perceptibly  deeper  than  when  she  had  first 
turned  to  him.  "  I  mean  you've  said  it  already,  without 
speaking  a  word." 

"  But  Caddie,"  he  began,  unthinkingly  using  the  name 
of  her  early  childhood.  She  cut  him  short,  however, 
with  the  music  of  her  laughter,  slightly  forced. 

"  Let's  walk,"  she  commanded.  And  he  had  to  hurry 
to  catch  up  with  her  as  she  struck  out  across-fields. 

"  Isn't  it  odd,"  she  remarked  after  they  had  walked 
on  in  silence  for  several  minutes,  "  how  little  life's  big 
moments  can  be  and  how  big  the  little  moments  some 
times  seem !  " 

The  note  of  wistfulness  in  her  voice  left  him  depressed 
and  ill-at-ease.  He  had  the  feeling  of  standing  before 
her  a  blind  and  blundering  failure.  She  was  much  the 
more  self-possessed  of  the  two  as  he  stopped  to  help  her 
over  a  broken  stone-wall.  But  instead  of  mounting  that 
wall  she  sat  down  on  its  rough  surface  and  stared  out 
over  meadowlands  of  undulating  and  rippling  green. 

"  I've  something  to  tell  you,"  she  said,  "  that  is  going 
to  surprise  you.  At  least  I  think  it's  going  to  surprise 
you,"  she  amended  as  she  looked  at  him  with  clear  and 
courageous  eyes.  "  I'm  going  to  marry  Chester  Hardy." 

"  Hardy?  "  repeated  Storrow,  feeling  the  need  of  time 
in  which  to  digest  his  shock.  And  Charlotte,  as  she 
watched  the  meadow-grasses,  moved  her  head  slowly  up 
and  down. 

"  He's  been  thoughtful  and  kind  in  such  unexpected 
ways,  these  last  few  months,"  she  went  on.  "  And  I 
really  like  him.  I  like  him  a  lot.  And  as  time  goes  on 
I  know  that  I'll  get  to  like  him  more  than  ever.  There's 
something  so  orderly  and  dependable  about  him,  quite 
outside  his  kindliness.  And  that's  always  a  comfortable 
thing  to  know." 

She  accepted  his  silence  without  questioning,  and  a 


300  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

vague  ache  crept  into  his  heart  as  they  came  to  a  stop 
on  the  breezier  crest  of  the  hills  overlooking  farmland 
and  villa  and  Sound  and  the  blue-grey  shoreland  beyond. 
It  was  not  love  winged  with  desire,  for  desire,  he  knew, 
was  beyond  him.  It  was  more  a  ghostly  yet  poignant 
regret  at  the  absence  of  desire,  a  knowledge  of  implacable 
loss  and  deprivation,  an  ache  almost  as  sorrowfully 
strong  as  the  ache  of  love  itself.  Her  mouth,  for  all  the 
smile  that  played  about  it  as  she  stared  out  across  the 
open  country,  seemed  unhappy.  And  deep  in  the  misty 
violet  of  her  eyes  was  a  trouble  which  he  could  not  and 
dare  not  define. 

His  scrutiny  seemed  to  embarrass  her,  for  she  sud 
denly  looked  down  at  her  skirt  of  black  serge,  laughing  a 
little  as  she  shook  out  the  folds  of  cloth. 

"  See  the  burrs,"  she  cried,  half  in  dismay,  for  their 
tramp  had  taken  them  far  from  beaten  paths.  "  Last 
year's  cockles  and  beggar-ticks  and  devil's  boot-jacks !  " 

He  knelt  on  the  ground  in  front  of  her  and  picked  the 
burrs  from  the  cloth,  one  by  one.  The  wind  whipped  it 
from  side  to  side,  so  that  he  was  compelled  to  hold  it  by 
a  loose  fold  until  the  last  burr  had  been  removed.  Then, 
still  kneeling  before  her,  he  placed  his  arms  about  her 
knees.  He  clasped  them,  with  his  head  bowed.  There 
was  unexpected  humility  in  his  attitude,  and  also  hunger, 
a  forlorn  and  undefined  hunger  touched  with  a  vast  hope 
lessness. 

Her  breast  heaved  as  she  continued  to  stare  across 
field  and  hill  and  valley  to  the  Sound  so  far  below  them, 
the  Sound  which  had  once  brought  them  together.  But 
she  did  not  speak.  For  a  moment  or  two,  as  he  knelt 
there,  the  tips  of  her  fingers  rested  on  his  head.  For  a 
moment  or  two,  also,  as  he  stood  at  her  side  again,  her 
hand  clung  to  his  arm.  It  reminded  him  that  there  would 
be  times  when  she  would  know  the  need  for  help  and 
that  the  glory  of  sustaining  her  would  never  be  his. 
Things  had  been  otherwise  ordained.  But  the  memory 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  301 

of  what  she  might  have  brought  to  him  left  a  vagiie  and 
wordless  misery  compressing  about  his  heart.  He  stood 
looking  at  her  in  a  sort  of  valedictory  wistfulness,  in  no 
wise  bitterly,  but  more  as  one  looks  at  the  tender  dead. 
She  was  holding  her  lips  tightly  together,  proudly,  almost 
combatively.  The  wind  had  whipped  her  hair  loose  and 
held  the  serge  skirt  close  in  against  her  knees,  making 
him  think  of  St.  Gauden's  Victory.  The  ghost  of  a 
smile  came  to  her  face  as  their  eyes  met. 

"  We  must  go  back  now,"  was  all  she  said.  But  her 
breast  heaved  again  as  she  started  on  ahead  of  him,  along 
the  downward  sloping  path. 

Five  minutes  later  she  looked  up  and  said  to  him: 
"  Justin  can  motor  you  in  to  town  tonight,  after  dinner. 
That  will  get  you  back  by  ten  o'clock." 

When  Storrow  opened  his  studio  door  that  night  he 
was  accosted  first  by  an  exceptional  glare  of  light  and 
next  by  an  unmistakable  odour  of  ether.  He  was  in 
through  that  door,  in  fact,  before  he  quite  realized  the 
alterations  in  a  once-familiar  room.  His  heart  stopped 
and  skipped  a  beat  as  he  beheld  a  bearded  man  in  a  white 
surgical  gown  standing  beside  his  buhl  table,  over  which 
a  fresh  sheet  had  been  placed.  On  this  sheet  rested  a 
white  porcelain  tray  on  which  in  turn  lay  a  curette  and 
speculum,  beside  a  number  of  instruments  with  a  scatter 
ing  of  high  lights  from  their  polished  metal  surface. 
On  the  couch-bed,  wrhich  had  been  moved  out  toward  the 
centre  of  the  room,  lay  Torrie,  and  beside  her,  with  her 
finger-tips  pressed  against  one  wrist,  sat  a  woman  in  the 
white  cap  and  uniform  of  a  trained  nurse.  Another 
woman,  also  in  white,  was  engaged  in  quietly  but  ex- 
peditiously  putting  the  room  to  rights.  She  stopped  for 
a  moment  in  the  midst  of  folding  a  rubber  sheet  at  the 
sudden  sight  of  Storrow  and  his  colourless  face.  The 
bearded  man  in  the  surgical  gown  must  have  been  con 
scious  of  that  arrested  movement,  for  he  swung  about 


302  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

and  with  a  coldly  appraising  eye  inspected  the  newcomer. 

"What's  happened?  What  in  the  name  of  God  has 
happened  ? "  Storrow  cried  out  in  sudden  terror,  for 
from  Torrie's  drooling  lips  were  coming  those  incoherent 
and  animal-like  sounds  not  unusual  in  a  patient  emerg 
ing  from  an  anaesthetic. 

"  Is  your  name  Storrow  ?  "  asked  the  man  in  the  white 
gown,  utterly  undisturbed  by  all  that  seemed  so  harrow 
ing  to  the  other  man. 

"  Yes  —  but  what  is  it?  "  gasped  that  other  man. 

"  I'm  Doctor  Eggert,  the  house  physician  at  The  San- 
sonia." 

11  Yes, —  yes  —  go  on !  " 

"  I  attended  Torrie  at  The  Alwyn  Arms  when  she  broke 
her  ankle  last  year.  She  is  a  wonderful  girl." 

Storrow  stared  at  him  with  almost  hate  in  his  eyes. 

"  But  what  has  happened  ?  "  he  repeated  with  a  quickly 
rising  inflection  which  caused  the  surgeon  in  the  gown  to 
lift  his  eyebrows  a  little  as  he  led  the  younger  man  slightly 
to  one  side. 

"  There  is  nothing  to  be  unduly  alarmed  about,"  he 
asserted  with  cool  and  professional  impersonality.  "  It 
is  merely  that  your  wife  has  had  an  accident,  a  not  un 
usual  accident.  I  regret  to  say,  though,  that  she  has  lost 
her  child." 

"  Lost  her  child !  "  echoed  Storrow,  vacuously,  staring 
towards  the  bed  from  which  the  diminishing  animal 
sounds  were  coming  with  less  frequency.  Then  shame 
overtook  him  at  his  impending  hysteria,  as  he  looked 
from  figure  to  figure  and  realized  that  they  at  least  were 
entirely  self-controlled  and  self-possessed.  His  eyes,  as 
they  sought  the  doctor's  face,  were  haggard.  "  But  how 
could  a  thing  like  that  happen  to  Torrie  ?  "  he  asked,  with 
his  lips  twitching. 

"  Watch  the  pulse,  please,  Miss  Slocum,"  Doctor  Eg 
gert  called  back  over  his  shoulder,  as  sounds  of  stentori- 
ous  breathing  came  from  the  bed.  Then  he  turned  back 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  303 

to  the  white- faced  man  beside  him.  "  As  far  as  I  un 
derstand  the  circumstances,  an  elderly  man  visited  your 
apartment  this  afternoon,  a  man  by  the  name  of  Mod- 
rynski.  Here  he  had  a  sharp,  in  fact,  a  fatal  heart- 
attack.  Torrie,  apparently,  tried  to  lift  him  from  the 
bed  and  carry  him  out  to  the  hall.  It  was  unfortunate, 
of  course,  for  the  strain  " — 

"  Modrynski !  "  whispered  Storrow.  He  was  uncon 
scious  of  the  fact  that  he  was  standing  alone  again,  for 
the  white-gowned  figure  had  left  his  side  and  was  stoop 
ing  over  the  reviving  woman  on  the  bed. 

He  saw  misty  white  figures  moving  decorously  about. 
He  heard  the  sound  of  voices,  controlled  and  quiet,  im 
personal  and  authoritative.  Then  he  awakened  to  the 
fact  that  Doctor  Eggert  was  speaking  to  him. 

"  Torrie  wants  you,"  he  heard  that  coolly  indifferent 
voice  call  out  to  him. 

He  crossed  to  the  bed,  and  stared  down  into  Torrie's 
face,  still  swollen  and  slightly  purplish  in  hue.  Her  eyes 
seemed  unnaturally  dark  in  the  strong  light,  and  some 
difficulty  in  focussing  them  made  it  hard,  for  a  moment, 
for  her  to  distinguish  her  husband.  She  reached  out 
weakly  for  his  hand. 

"  Oh,  Owen,"  she  cried  as  the  tears  welled  from  her 
eyes  and  ran  down  the  still  swollen  face.  "  I  wanted  my 
baby!  My  poor  Til  baby!  My  poor  1'il  baby!" 

Storrow  took  her  groping  fingers  and  held  them.  It 
was  all  there  seemed  to  do.  For  a  vast  and  denuding 
apathy  had  taken  possession  of  him.  It  was  the  past,  he 
remembered,  the  implacable  past,  reaching  out  a  hand 
for  its  own. 


CHAPTER   TWENTY-FIVE 

TORRIE  THROSSEL  and  her  husband  had  been 
three  weeks  at  "  Pine-Brae,"  as  Amasa  Kirkner 
had  once  christened  the  Ontario  fruit-farm 
which  sloped  down  from  The  Ridge  to  the  slate-cliffs 
overlooking  the  tumbling  blue  waters  of  Lake  Erie. 

It  was  high  noon  of  a  flawless  June-end  day.  Flat 
on  his  back,  on  a  Navajo  rug  stretched  out  in  a  grassy 
hollow  along  the  cliff-edge,  lay  Storrow  with  a  sweat- 
stained  felt  hat  pulled  low  over  his  tanned  and  stubbled 
face,  to  keep  the  sun  out  of  his  eyes.  Slightly  higher  up 
on  the  sloping  shelf  of  greensward  lay  Torrie,  bare 
headed,  in  a  soiled  "  middy-blouse  "  and  a  much  crumpled 
skirt  of  duck.  She  had  kicked  off  her  incongruous  jet- 
beaded  slippers,  and  lay  on  her  stomach  with  her  chin  in 
her  hands  and  her  silk-stockinged  feet  drumming  lazily 
and  intermittently  on  the  turf.  She  stared  at  her  hus 
band,  who  after  a  morning  of  farm-toil  seemed  glad 
enough  of  this  half-hour  of  contented  and  animal-like 
inactivity. 

"  You  lazy  hound,"  she  said  sleepily  and  affectionately 
as  she  tossed  a  handful  of  grass  along  his  hat-rim.  But 
he  neither  moved  nor  spoke.  Then  she  sat  up  and  stared 
at  the  red-brick  house  shaded  by  its  cluster  of  lordly 
pines.  She  could  see  Absalom,  the  aged  negro  man 
servant  who  had  so  recently  been  transported  from  the 
neighbouring  county-seat  to  Pine-Brae,  slowly  and  croon- 
ingly  clearing  the  dinner  table  that  had  been  set  in  the 
cooler  shadow  of  the  side-porch  with  its  bright  new  awn 
ings  of  taupe  and  willow-green  stripes.  Absalom,  who 
boasted  of  having  been  a  chef  of  fame  in  his  younger 

304 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  305 

days,  still  wore  the  white  cotton  gloves  with  which  he 
invariably  served  a  meal.  Torrie,  who  had  promptly 
shortened  his  name  into  "  Abe  "  and  later  expanded  it  to 
"  Uncle  Abe,"  found  it  possible  to  talk  with  this  old 
negro  by  the  hour.  And  now,  as  he  moved  about  the 
cool  shadows  and  from  time  to  time  disappeared  into  the 
cooler  gloom  of  the  house  itself,  he  seemed  a  fit  and  ven 
erable  figure  to  be  presiding  about  so  old  and  venerable 
a  homestead.  And  it  had  been  an  amazingly  substantial 
dinner  of  asparagus  soup  and  roast-beef  and  vegetables 
and  strawberry  dumpling  and  coffee  and  clotted  cream,  a 
dinner  which  had  prompted  Torrie,  before  tapping  her 
cigarette-end  on  her  polished  thumb-nail,  to  resort  to 
certain  subterranean  and  surreptitious  movements  of 
waist-band  releasings.  The  open  air  and  the  somewhat 
heady  bottled  ale  which  her  husband  had  laid  in  for  her, 
on  a  compact  to  abstain  from  more  ardent  spirits  during 
her  period  of  convalescence,  had  left  her  singularly 
drowsy  and  contented  in  spirit.  She  turned  lazily  about 
to  rescue  her  slipper  from  Skookum,  the  collie  pup  which 
Owen  after  much  travel  and  trouble  had  obtained  from  a 
neighbouring  farm,  on  her  ultimatum  that  she  must  have 
a  dog.  But  Skookum's  companionship  had  proved  not 
entirely  without  its  drawbacks,  since  with  the  voracity  of 
youth  this  pup  indiscriminately  chewed  up  hats  and  pa 
pers  and  shoes,  and  frayed  the  ends  of  the  new  striped 
awnings,  and  started  runs  in  Torrie's  silk  stockings  by 
affectionately  biting  at  her  ankles  after  clamorous  and 
excited  racings  about  the  pine  grove  in  which  Skookum 
invariably  proved  how  easily  four  legs  could  outrun  two. 
Torrie,  after  another  glance  at  her  motionless  hus 
band,  turned  and  stared  out  over  the  misty  blue  of  the 
lake,  along  which  drifted  an  opal  sail  or  two.  High 
over  her  she  could  see  cliff-swallows  darting  and  circling. 
Faintly,  from  the  beach  below,  came  the  sound  of  water. 
The  air  was  filled  with  the  quiet  droning  of  bees,  engaged 
in  their  repetitious  visits  to  over-weighted  dandelion- 


3o6  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

heads.  Back  in  the  dark  green  boughs  of  the  pines, 
which  murmured  unceasingly  in  the  soft  breeze,  a  wood- 
pigeon  repeated  its  monotonous  complaint. 

"  Kill-a-coon !  Kill-a-coon !  "  Torrie  lazily  repeated  in 
mockery  of  the  bird  as  she  commandeered  the  lower  half 
of  her  husband's  Navajo  rug  and  after  dusting  his  nose 
with  a  head  of  blue-grass  drew  Skookum  closer  in  against 
the  hollow  of  her  relaxed  body.  Once  or  twice  she 
stroked  the  furry  neck  with  her  sunburned  hand.  Then 
sun  and  air  and  tranquillizing  noonday  noises  seemed  to 
combine  and  surround  her  like  an  anaesthetic.  She 
sighed  profoundly,  reached  up  for  Storrow's  worn  felt 
hat,  covered  her  face  with  it,  and  fell  asleep. 

Storrow,  with  the  hot  sun  directly  in  his  eyes,  stirred 
and  sat  up.  He  looked  at  his  watch,  remembering  there 
was  still  much  to  be  done  that  day.  Then  he  looked  at 
the  warm  red  brick  of  the  house  mottled  with  cooler 
patches  of  shadow,  and  decided  that  before  another  year 
a  new  roof  would  be  necessary  and  that  the  threateningly 
ruinous  east  chimney  would  have  to  be  rebuilt.  He  was 
finding,  in  fact,  an  almost  bewildering  amount  of  work 
in  the  rehabilitation  of  that  long  abandoned  farm.  But  it 
was  work  in  which  he  lost  himself  with  a  quite  uncom 
plaining  and  contented  spirit.  It  tired  his  body  and 
dulled  his  mind  and  kept  him  from  thinking  of  the  past. 
He  felt,  in  a  way,  that  it  was  a  process  of  rebarbarization. 
But  it  brought  him  peace,  and  peace,  after  all,  was  a  great 
and  wonderful  thing  in  life. 

He  turned  and  looked  down  at  Torrie.  The  felt  hat 
had  slipped  a  little  to  one  side,  leaving  her  face  exposed. 
He  was  amazed  by  the  changes  which  he  could  see  there. 
She  had  filled  out  and  gained  in  weight.  Open  air  life, 
in  fact,  had  brought  about  some  mysterious  process  of 
rejuvenation  with  her.  The  once  milky  white  skin  had 
taken  on  a  deeper  colouring.  The  passive  and  sleeping 
face,  he  could  see,  was  unmistakably  sunburned,  with  a 
small  runway  of  turkey-spots  across  the  narrow  bridge  of 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  307 

the  nose.  She  looked  half-gypsy,  almost  peasant-like  to 
him,  until  from  beneath  her  tumbled  duck  skirt  he  caught 
sight  of  the  finest  of  silk  underskirts  which  she  still  per 
sisted  in  wearing,  and  the  sheer  silk  stockings  against 
which  Skookum  rested  a  quietly  sleeping  nose.  She  was 
not,  he  remembered,  a  child  of  the  soil.  She  still  looked 
upon  this,  her  first  taste  of  life  in  the  country,  as  a  sort 
of  continuous  picnic  where  hardships  were  an  adventure 
to  be  laughed  at,  where  recurring  wonder  at  utterly  new 
conditions  tended  to  make  up  for  an  environment  that 
was  far  from  eventful.  He  smiled  as  he  remembered 
her  futile  little  efforts  at  gardening,  her  plots  of  trans 
planted  and  patted-down  wild-flowers,  carefully  marked 
with  sticks,  seemingly  more  the  product  of  a  child's  hand 
than  a  woman's.  She  lamented  audibly  over  the  droop 
ing  and  broken- rooted  ferns,  which  she  had  quite  forgot 
ten  to  water,  just  as  she  railed  against  the  injustice  of 
nature  in  allowing  flies  to  cluster  about  and  torment  the 
body  of  their  newly  purchased  Jersey  cow,  which  she  had 
promptly  christened  "  Aprilis,"  after  a  one-time  Casino 
stage-associate  of  hers.  For  a  day  or  two  she  had  even 
laboriously  and  patiently  fanned  these  flies  away  from  the 
tawny  flanks  of  "  Aprilis,"  using  branches  of  elderberry 
which  she  broke  from  the  fence-line.  And  invariably, 
when  evening  came,  she  heralded  milking-time  by  in 
quiring  if  she  could  help  "  page  "  Aprilis,  though  it  took 
her  fully  a  week  to  overcome  her  distaste  for  milk  so 
disturbingly  associated  with  its  biologic  process  of  pro* 
duction.  She  stormed  at  the  robins  for  encroaching  on 
her  neglected  and  none  too  productive  patch  of  straw 
berries,  for  never  before  had  she  picked  that  fruit  from 
the  vine,  and  she  usually  came  from  the  patch  with  her 
mouth  stained  scarlet,  like  a  greedy  child's.  So  keen 
was  her  delight  in  gathering  eggs  that  Storrow  had  more 
than  once  secretly  augmented  the  contents  of  a  nest,  for 
the  mere  sake  of  over-hearing  her  shrill  shout  of 
triumph  as  she  dropped  to  her  knees  and  excitedly  com- 


3c8  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

puted  the  extent  of  her  harvest.  But  she  looked  on  a 
clover-field  as  something  merely  to  careen  across  with 
her  hair  flying  and  the  carefully  mounded  cocks  of  fresh- 
cut  hay  as  merely  something  odorous  and  inviting  to 
tumble  about  and  bury  oneself  in. 

What  had  surprised  Storrow,  however,  was  the  com 
pleteness  of  her  contentment  in  it  all.  There  had  already 
grown  up  between  them  a  tacit  agreement  to  make  no 
mention  of  that  past  on  which  they  had  so  completely 
turned  their  backs.  If  she  thought  of  that  past  at  all, 
she  did  so  in  secret  Yet  Storrow  knew  that  she  was  not 
entering  into  the  life  of  Pine-Brae  as  he  had  entered  into 
it.  She  was  merely  catching  from  it  the  momentary  de 
lights  of  the  momentary  pagan.  She  could  munch 
inordinate  quantities  of  green  apples,  and  call  with  ex 
citement  at  the  sight  of  a  wild  rabbit,  and  coo  with 
admiration  at  her  first  glimpse  of  a  cat-bird's  nest  filled 
with  its  four  small  eggs  of  heavenly  blue,  or  wade  bare 
footed  with  her  skirts  held  high  above  her  golden  knees, 
along  the  shallow  beach  of  rippled  sand.  But  she  un 
derstood  little  what  Storrow  meant  when  he  complained 
that  he  had  come  to  Pine-Brae  too  late  to  take  the  farm 
in  hand  for  that  season.  And  at  night,  when  he  sat  with 
his  pipe,  slightly  heavy-eyed  with  physical  weariness, 
poring  over  plans  and  compiling  ever-growing  lists  of 
their  household  needs,  she  would  wheedle  old  Abe  into 
romancing  about  the  days  of  the  Fenian  Raid  and  the 
more  antiquated  and  accordingly  more  highly-coloured 
adventures  of  The  Underground,  whereby  the  southern 
slaves  of  the  old  days  had  once  escaped  into  Canada. 
Then  Abe,  ceremoniously  donning  his  white  gloves,  would 
bring  cheese  and  crackers  and  the  bottled  ale  from  the 
cellar,  and  Torrie,  drowsy  with  that  heady  brew,  would 
take  Storrow's  pipe  away  from  him  and  ask :  "  Isn't  it 
bed-time,  Honey?" 

She  liked  to  sleep  late,  though  on  one  pellucid  morning 
of  opal  and  pearl  and  pale  rose  she  had  got  up  with  him 


THE  .WINE  OF  LIFE  309 

a  little  after  four  in  the  morning,  to  see  the  sun-rise. 
She  had  greeted  that  ball  of  molten  gold  with  song, 
throaty  and  care-free  and  slightly  flat,  from  the  highest 
knoll  along  their  cliff-front,  and  later  they  had  dodged 
from  sumach-bush  to  sumach-bush  shaking  little  showers 
of  dew  down  on  each  other  from  the  dripping  leaves. 
Then  they  had  clambered  down  the  cliff-front  to  the  beach 
and  bathed  there  together,  naked  as  Adam  and  Eve,  in 
the  motionless  water  of  the  lake.  There  she  had  drawn 
his  attention  to  how  sunburned  her  neck  and  shoulders 
were,  dark  by  comparison  with  the  milky  whiteness  of  the 
torso-skin.  But  as  she  leaned  back  against  the  cliff,  wist 
ful  and  abstracted-eyed,  her  attitude  and  expression  sent 
his  mind  flashing  back  to  Vibbard  and  Vibbard's  earlier 
painting  of  her.  The  glory  went  out  of  that  perfect 
June  morning,  and  he  ate  breakfast  that  day  in  a  heavy 
and  none  too  happy  silence.  For  he  was  struggling  in 
vain  to  keep  from  thinking  of  the  dead  past,  which  is 
never  quite  dead.  And  when  he  thought  of  the  future, 
it  was  always  with  one  ever-disturbing  and  ever-unan 
swered  question  recurring  to  him :  the  question  of  how 
long  that  fragile  card-house  of  contentment  might  last. 


CHAPTER   TWENTY-SIX 

THE  quietly  flowing  days  ran  into  weeks,  and  the 
weeks  widened  into  months,  and  the  green  faded 
a  little  in  leaf  and  lawn,  and  Summer  grew  old. 
Storrow,  still  deep  in  his  work  of  reconstruction,  watched 
the  shortening  of  the  days,  watched  them  with  that  in 
determinate  regret  which  attaches  to  the  passing  of  all 
earthly  beauty.  He  watched  them,  too,  with  a  small  and 
slowly  growing  anxiety.  Torrie  could  still  be  heard  sing 
ing  now  and  then  as  she  worked  or  idled  about  in  the 
open  sunlight.  She  still  raced  with  Skookum,  and  talked 
interminably  with  the  adoring  old  Abe,  and  remained 
discreetly  silent  on  everything  but  the  present.  But  a 
change  was  taking  place.  A  dormant  restlessness  of 
spirit  which  still  manifested  itself  only  in  oblique  and 
accidental  ways  seemed  to  be  creeping  over  her.  This 
restlessness,  the  guardedly  watchful  Storrow  was  able  to 
perceive,  invariably  became  more  marked  just  after  their 
evening  meal.  That,  he  remembered,  was  the  theatre 
hour,  the  hour  which  in  her  old  life  had  imposed  excep 
tional  movement  and  activity  on  his  wife.  A  vestigial 
remnant  of  that  old  call  seemed  still  to  stir  her  blood, 
making  it  hard  for  her  to  remain  quiet  at  the  very  hour 
when  all  the  world  about  her  seemed  settling  into  slumber. 
Once,  too,  as  she  sat  on  the  wide  verandah,  staring  out 
over  the  slate-blue  waters  of  the  lake,  she  had  startled 
him  by  jumping  to  her  feet  with  an  exclamation  of  angry 
protest. 

'  Those  mourning-doves  nearly  drive  me  crazy,"  she 
protested.     "  They    sound   like   a    hearse-plume   set   to 

310 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  311 

music.  Kill-a-coon!  Kill-a-coon!  Hour  after  hour 
—  the  same  old  thing  —  over  and  over  again!  " 

One  day  when  the  wind  was  out  of  the  North  and  the 
sky-line  of  the  lake  was  a  dark  green,  Storrow  thought 
he  detected  a  small  shiver  sweep  through  her  relaxed 
body.  He  looked  up  and  asked  her  if  she  was  cold. 

"  No,"  she  said  in  a  disturbingly  flat  and  listless  voice. 
"  I  was  only  wondering  what  this  place  is  going  to  be 
like  in  winter.  And  Uncle  Abe  tells  me  your  Canadian 
winters  last  a  good  half  of  the  year." 

"  And  to  anybody  but  a  nigger,"  protested  Storrow, 
"  it's  the  finest  of  all  our  seasons." 

Torrie  laughed.  "  Then  you  can  count  me  among  the 
coloured  folks,"  she  said  as  she  began  to  pace  back  and 
forth  along  the  verandah. 

Storrow  watched  those  restless  movements,  vaguely 
depressed.  A  feeling  crept  through  him  that,  after  all, 
his  carefully  carpentered  structure  of  contentment  had 
been  built  on  dubious  foundations.  It  was  built,  in  fact, 
on  no  foundation  whatever.  At  its  best,  it  was  only  a 
bivouac.  He  was  able,  as  he  thought  this  over,  to  at 
tribute  a  deeper  meaning  to  certain  trivial  incidents  and 
moods  of  the  last  few  weeks.  Torrie  was  not  as  happy 
as  she  had  pretended,  just  as  he  had  not  been  as  con 
tented  as  he  had  desired.  Always  over  his  head  had 
hung  that  Damocles'  sword  of  a  life  still  chiefly  governed 
by  caprice.  Yet  always  he  had  planned  and  campaigned 
to  hold  together  what  was  left  of  existence,  feeling  that 
this  campaign  was  one  of  self-preservation  for  both  of 
them.  And  there  was  still  the  glimmer  that  must  not  be 
let  go  entirely  out. 

"What  are  you  thinking  about?"  demanded  Torrie, 
coming  to  a  stop  in  front  of  him. 

"  I  was  thinking  how  you'd  enjoy  that  two-mile  walk 
to  the  post-office  for  the  mail,"  he  evaded,  "  now  that  the 
weather's  cooler." 

She  caught  at  that  suggestion  much  more  eagerly  than 


3i2  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

he  had  expected,  donning  tarn  and  sweater  and  tan  boots 
and  catching  up  the  antiquated  riding-crop  of  Amasa 
Kirkner  as  she  called  gaily  for  Skookum.  And  as  she 
disappeared,  in  a  flurry  of  skirts  and  laughter,  the  cloud 
which  had  so  quickly  gathered  seemed  to  have  just  as 
rapidly  disappeared  from  the  horizon. 

Torrie,  in  fact,  had  lately  formed  the  habit  of  walking 
daily  to  the  post-office  for  the  mail.  She  needed  that 
four-mile  tramp,  she  explained  to  Storrow,  to  harden  up. 
She  had  "  been  letting  herself  go,"  as  she  expressed  it, 
until  it  was  a  struggle  even  to  get  her  corsets  on  in  the 
morning.  And  if  she  grew  dumpy  and  humpy  her  hus 
band  wouldn't  love  her  any  longer.  And  ladies  had  to 
have  their  husbands  love  them,  even  if  they  were  a  thou 
sand  miles  from  civilization. 

Storrow  stared  after  her.  A  summer  of  open-air  life 
had  brought  a  more  vivid  tone  to  the  satin-like  skin,  a 
clearness  to  the  ruminative  and  wide-set  eyes,  a  deeper 
red  to  the  softly  curved  lips,  a  fulness  and  firmness  of 
line  to  the  still  buoyant  figure.  Once  more  it  reminded 
him,  in  its  vigour  and  resiliency,  of  something 
animal-like,  of  a  paddocked  thoroughbred,  impatient  of 
restraint. 

It  was  a  week  later  that  Torrie  returned  from  her 
daily  tramp  with  the  light  of  a  new  interest  in  her  eyes. 
Storrow,  disturbed  by  it,  bided  his  time  in  silence. 

"  Owen,  what  would  you  say  if  I  told  you  I  was  going 
to  visit  Detroit  for  a  day  or  two?  "  she  asked  that  day  at 
luncheon. 

"  It's  something  which  your  neighbours  very  fre 
quently  do,"  he  announced,  with  a  laugh  of  relief. 

"  I  never  knew  I  had  any  neighbours,"  she  amended. 
'  That's  because  you've  never  shown  any  interest  in 
them,"  he  pointed  out  to  her.     And  she  shrugged  a  dif 
fident  shoulder. 

"  Well,  I'm  in  rags,  anyway,"  she  went  on,  "  com 
pletely  in  rags.  I've  simply  got  to  stock  up  with  some 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  313 

new  duds.  And  Mattie  Crowder's  going  to  be  in  Detroit 
next  week  with  The  Gold  Wing  Girls,  so  I  thought  it 
would  be  a  good  chance  to  kill  Mattie  and  the  store 
keepers  with  the  same  stone." 

Storrow's  relief,  at  the  mention  of  that  name  out  of 
their  old  life,  was  shorter-lived  than  he  expected.  But 
it  would  be  inexpedient,  he  concluded,  to  oppose  Torrie's 
excursion. 

He  drove  her  in  to  the  county-seat  to  catch  her  train, 
not  a  little  disquieted  by  the  suddenness  with  which  she 
had  assumed  a  miraculously  citified  appearance.  He 
watched  her  train  pull  out,  waving  blithely  enough  after 
her  as  she  stood  on  the  platform  of  the  chair-car,  yet 
wordlessly  depressed  by  what  he  remembered  was  the 
first  vision  of  her  being  carried  bodily  away  from  him. 
He  went  back  to  Pine-Brae  and  to  his  work  of  fence- 
building  and  roof -mending  and  fall-pruning,  but  he  was 
lonely  and  listless.  It  dawned  on  him,  for  the  first  time, 
that  life  in  the  country  could  be  a  very  desolate  matter, 
without  some  form  of  companionship. 

"  'Tain't  the  same,  sah,  wif  Mis'  Torrie  away,"  averred 
Uncle  Abe,  in  no  way  lightening  the  load  that  hung  on 
Storrow's  heart. 

Torrie,  however,  did  not  return  on  the  second  day,  as 
she  had  expected,  but  remained  away  until  the  end  of  the 
week.  There  had  been  alterations  to  make,  she  ex 
plained,  and  it  was  the  busy  season  for  the  shops  and 
dressmakers.  But  she  demanded  of  Storrow,  as  she 
exhibited  herself  in  her  new  and  transforming  apparel, 
if  it  had  not  been  worth  the  wait.  She  was  proud  of  her 
clothes,  and  even  prouder  of  the  fact  that  she  had  suc 
cessfully  smuggled  them  across  the  Line.  Beyond  this, 
however,  she  came  back  unexpectedly  sober-eyed  and 
self-contained,  announcing  that  Mattie  was  as  crazy  as 
ever  and  that  chorus-girls  were  a  pack  of  children.  She 
even  seemed  more  reconciled  to  the  quiet  tenor  of  life  at 
Pine-Brae,  taking  up  her  tasks  again  with  a  sort  of 


3i4  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

jocund  preoccupation  and  resuming  her  daily  walks  to  the 
village  post-office. 

It  was  two  weeks  later  that  Storrow,  engaged  in  team 
ing  his  wind-fall  apples  to  the  village  evaporator,  remem 
bered  to  stop  in  at  this  same  office  and  ask  for  his  mail. 
He  was  given  a  couple  of  papers  and  a  cream-coloured 
envelope  embossed  in  gold  with  the  name  of  a  Fifth 
Avenue  hotel,  addressed  to  his  wife.  He  turned  it  over, 
at  first  indifferently,  and  then  with  a  sudden  flash  of 
suspicion  shooting  through  his  body.  Once  more  back 
on  his  wagon-seat  he  studied  the  post-mark  and  the  hastily 
scrawled  address.  Then  he  pushed  the  letter  down  in 
his  coat-pocket,  and  once  more  took  it  out  and  studied 
it.  Then  with  a  sudden  tightening  of  the  lines  about  his 
mouth  he  inserted  a  forefinger  under  the  flap  of  the  sealed 
envelope  and  tore  it  open.  He  took  out  the  folded  sheet 
and  read  it. 

"  Am  motoring  to  Detroit  again  on  the  twenty-ninth. 
D.  E." 

That  was  all  he  found  written  there. 

It  was  non-committal  enough.  But  it  was  sufficient. 
That  "  D.  E."  he  knew,  could  stand  only  for  Donnie 
Eastman.  And  it  was  not  what  was  openly  stated,  but 
all  that  was  implied,  which  sufficed  to  take  the  gladness 
out  of  the  high-arching  autumn  sky  and  bring  a  dull  and 
leaden  ache  to  the  heart  of  the  man  so  carefully  tearing 
a  cream-coloured  scrap  of  paper  into  small  tatters  and 
then  letting  the  breeze  whisk  them  away  like  a  small 
flurry  of  snow. 

It  was  not  rage  that  took  possession  of  him,  this  time; 
it  was  more  a  thin  and  listless  hopelessness  which  he 
found  himself  without  the  will  and  without  the  weapons 
to  combat.  And  it  brought  to  him  a  forewarning  of  the 
future  which  he  seemed  unable  to  face. 

Ten  minutes  later  he  met  Torrie  herself  swinging  to- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  315 

wards  him  down  the  road,  with  Skookum  running  circles 
ibout  her.  The  colour  in  her  cheeks  was  high,  and  as 
he  drew  up  at  the  roadside  and  awaited  her  he  was  in 
wardly  disturbed  by  the  air  of  openness  and  honest 
vigour  about  her. 

"  Climb  in,"  he  called  out  in  a  mockery  of  gaiety,  for 
he  realized  now  that  he  must  exercise  a  craft  to  meet  her 
own. 

"  But  I'm  going  for  the  mail,"  she  explained. 

"  The  mail  ?  Oh,  I  got  that  on  my  way,"  he  carelessly 
announced,  with  his  hand  against  the  coat-pocket  into 
which  the  papers  had  been  thrust. 

"  Anything  worth  while  ?  "  she  just  as  carelessly  in 
quired  as  she  clambered  up  into  the  wagon-seat  beside 
him. 

His  eyes  were  on  the  road  ahead  of  him  as  he  reached 
into  his  pocket  and  handed  her  the  papers.  But  her  little 
moue  of  disappointment  as  she  took  them  in  her  hand 
and  turned  them  over  did  not  escape  him. 

It  was  trivial  enough,  he  told  himself.  In  some  ways, 
indeed,  it  was  almost  laughable,  that  double-sided  game 
of  deception,  but  the  more  he  thought  about  it  the  more 
it  impressed  him  as  becoming  tremendous  in  both  signifi 
cance  and  dimensions.  For  on  trivialities  such  as  these, 
he  remembered,  would  surely  hinge  some  vast  and  im 
pending  movement  which  he  dreaded  to  define.  Yet,  to 
the  casual  eye,  there  was  no  change  in  his  attitude  to 
wards  Torrie.  He  merely  became  more  self-contained 
and  more  guarded  in  his  watchfulness,  surprising  him 
self,  now  and  then,  in  a  newly  acquired  habit  of  inspect 
ing  his  wife  as  though  she  were  a  newcomer  into  his  life 
and  all  knowledge  as  to  her  character  remained  still  a 
matter  of  guess-work.  Sometimes,  as  he  found  himself 
becoming  more  and  more  adept  in  craft,  ready  to  match 
duplicity  with  duplicity  and  with  the  habit  of  covertly 
watching  her  more  relentlessly  imposed  upon  him,  he 
suffered  from  a  secret  and  indeterminate  resentment 


3i6  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

which  only  rarely  flamed  up  into  anything  approaching  a 
dull  rage.  In  those  occasional  moments  of  stronger 
emotion  he  felt  the  need  of  making  her  suffer,  even  as  he 
stood  doubly  confounded  by  the  suspicion  that  in  all  like 
lihood  she  already  stood  beyond  the  power  of  being  made 
to  suffer  by  him. 

One  night  when  a  promise  of  frost  had  prompted  them 
to  light  an  open  fire  in  the  dark-beamed  living-room, 
homely  with  its  old  walnut  and  brass,  he  sat  watching  her 
from  under  lowered  lids.  He  sat  watching  her,  sheltered 
behind  his  carefully  sustained  pretence  of  drowsiness. 
She  was  mending  his  work-shirts  and  had  complained  as 
she  went  on  with  her  stitching  that  he  was  terribly  hard 
on  his  clothes,  almost  as  hard  on  them  as  he  \vas  on  his 
wife.  She  was  sitting  in  the  diffused  rose-glow  from  the 
hickory-logs  and  the  loveliness  of  her  face  as  she  bent 
smilingly  over  her  task  struck  him  to  the  heart  with  al 
most  the  keenness  of  a  knife-thrust.  He  felt  the  need  of 
her,  just  as  he  felt  the  impossibility  of  holding  her  there 
once  her  will  desired  to  carry  her  elsewhere.  He  had  no 
means  of  anchoring  or  encaging  her.  It  would  be  as 
impossible  to  capture  and  imprison  her  as  it  would  be  to 
capture  and  imprison  a  soap-bubble.  She  had  alighted 
in  his  life  as  a  golden-oriole  alights  on  one  of  his  orchard- 
trees,  to  sing  busily  enough  for  its  moment,  and  then  pass 
on  again. 

Torrie  stopped  in  her  work  and  glanced  up  at  him, 
disturbed  by  his  sudden  small  body-movement  of  misery. 
She  smiled  at  him  companionably,  but  there  was  no  an 
swering  smile  on  his  preoccupied  face. 

"  Here  I  am  working  my  fingers  to  the  bone,"  she 
lightly  complained,  "  for  a  husband  who  doesn't  even 
care  for  me  any  more !  " 

She  laughed  as  she  said  it,  but  her  eyes  became  ab 
stracted  as  she  turned  her  face  to  the  fire. 

"What  makes  you  think  that?"  demanded  Storrow, 
almost  fiercely,  as  he  caught  her  wrist  in  an  iron  clasp. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  317 

"  Because  you're  so  icebergy,"  she  told  him,  looking 
down  at  the  wrist  which  he  had  imprisoned. 

"  Is  that  the  only  reason?  "  asked  her  husband,  swing 
ing  her  about  by  the  shoulders  so  that  her  eyes  faced 
his. 

"  It's  reason  enough,  when  you  know  there's  a  reason 
for  the  reason/'  she  cryptically  announced,  lowering  her 
gaze  before  the  suddenly  unreasoning  and  masterful 
stare  of  the  other.  For  something  far  removed  from 
the  mere  consciousness  of  her  beauty  had  fired  the  train 
of  dormant  sex-impulse  in  Storrow.  He  knew  a  forlorn 
craving  to  bend  her  still  to  his  will,  to  proclaim  his  mas 
tery  over  the  body  \vhich  housed  the  spirit  which  denied 
and  defied  him.  He  was  swept  by  a  sudden  passion  to 
make  her  his,  if  only  for  the  moment. 

She  made  an  effort  to  thrust  him  back,  as  he  took  pos 
session  of  her,  and  stared  up  almost  startled  into  his 
storm-clouded  eyes.  But  she  became  passive  as  he 
caught  her  in  his  arms  and  crushed  her  against  his  body, 
with  his  lips  on  hers  in  an  impassioned  kiss  which  per 
plexed  her  much  more  than  it  moved  her.  Then  she  be 
came  pliant  and  relaxed  in  his  clasp.  And  he  understood, 
as  reason  returned  to  him,  why  she  kept  her  face  averted 
from  his  eyes. 


CHAPTER   TWENTY-SEVEN 

IT  was  a  week  later  that  Torrie,  after  one  of  her 
solitary  walks,  returned  home  later  than  usual.  Her 
air  of  suppressed  excitement  alternating  with  periods 
of  abstraction  did  not  escape  the  watchful-eyed  Storrow. 
He  was  disturbed,  subliminally,  as  creatures  of  the  wild 
are  disturbed  by  vague  scents  of  an  unseen  enemy  wafted 
up-wind.  He  watched  her  that  day,  and  on  the  days 
that  followed,  with  guarded  and  jealous  eyes.  But  he 
said  nothing  and  did  nothing,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
instinct  told  him  there  was  nothing  to  say  or  do. 

He  had  been  prompted,  at  first,  to  follow  Torrie.  But 
that  was  an  impulse  which  he  dismissed,  glad  as  he  would 
have  been  of  the  chance  to  bring  things  to  a  head.  He 
hated  the  thought  of  dodging  and  skulking  after  her. 
And  she  could  not  be  watched  forever,  no  matter  how  he 
stooped  to  the  tricks  and  degradations  of  espionage. 
The  situation,  he  came  to  feel,  was  something  which  now 
lay  in  the  lap  of  the  gods. 

Torrie,  in  the  meantime,  had  twice  secretly  met  Donnie 
Eastman,  and  had  twice  returned  home  from  those  meet 
ings  with  a  strangely  contradictory  feeling  of  power 
mingled  with  frustration.  Keen  as  was  her  woman's 
joy  born  of  the  knowledge  that  she  could  control  a  fellow- 
being,  and  a  fellow-being  who  had  drunk  deep  of  life, 
by  her  smile  or  frown,  she  was  intimidated  by  the  dis 
covery  that  the  reckless-eyed  Donnie  had  come  to  her  to 
demand  the  impossible.  And  while  nothing,  as  yet,  had 
come  of  either  those  meetings  or  those  demands,  Torrie 
also  carried  the  disquieting  conviction  that  her  destiny 

318 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  319 

was  in  some  way  high  above  her  reach  on  the  lap  of  the 
gods. 

Bonnie  Eastman,  as  Torrie  Throssel  had  once  in 
timated,  practically  always  got  what  he  wanted.  This 
was  due  to  the  fact,  perhaps,  that  his  wants  were  gen 
erally  material  and  corporeal.  After  migrating  from 
three  seats  of  learning  where  the  atmosphere  had  proved 
over-austere  to  his  unfettered  spirit,  and  on  leaving  Har 
vard  before  the  end  of  his  second  year  at  that  institution, 
he  found  himself  the  sole  and  undisputed  possessor  of  a 
fortune  officially  estimated  at  close  to  seventeen  million 
dollars.  This  fortune  had  been  accumulated  by  an  over- 
cerebral  and  over-active  parent,  who,  after  living  a  year 
and  a  half  on  zwieback  and  peptonized  milk,  died  quite 
unexpectedly  and  miserably  of  malnutrition.  Since  any 
movement  appertaining  to  or  even  resembling  the  dis 
persal  of  wealth  so  sedulously  garnered  was  instinctively 
distasteful  to  this  parent,  it  so  happened  that  an  only  son 
in  whom  he  had  no  confidence  and  for  whom  he  had  no 
respect  became  the  possessor  of  a  somewhat  bewildering 
estate  which  had  not  been  actually  destined  for  his  owner 
ship. 

So  Donnie  became  a  spender.  It  was  all  that  he  stood 
equipped  to  become,  and  it  was  all  that  was  demanded  of 
him.  In  this,  however,  he  betrayed  no  particular  talent 
and  even  less  originality,  his  spending  following  the 
urban  and  predetermined  grooves  of  custom.  He 
eschewed,  it  is  true,  the  sterner  sports  of  the  polo-field 
and  the  hydroplane,  and  his  earlier  experiments  with  rac 
ing-yachts  did  not  long  survive  the  discovery  that  com 
fort  on  all  such  craft  was  relentlessly  sacrificed  to  speed. 
He  was  equally  unhappy  in  his  efforts  at  establishing  a 
"  stable,"  and  was  glad  enough  to  relinquish  his  interest 
in  track-horses,  which  never  seemed  to  acquire  the  art  of 
running  first,  for  the  sedater  and  more  pictorial  task  of 
"  tooling  "  a  coach-and-four  up  Fifth  Avenue  and  out  to 


320  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

Rye.  He  was  not,  however,  without  certain  definite  im 
pulses  towards  distinction.  He  could  wring  a  clearly 
defined  glory  out  of  being  known  as  the  only  member  of 
the  Cloister  Club  whose  bar-bill  for  one  year  had  ex 
ceeded  twenty-five  thousand  dollars.  For  a  dinner- 
dance  which  he  gave  one  Spring,  the  ball-room  of  Del- 
monico's  was  transformed  into  an  actual  apple-orchard 
in  bloom,  as  duly  recounted  and  moralized  over  in  the 
public  prints.  An  equally  historic  dinner  of  Bonnie's 
was  one  which  was  brought  from  Paris  to  New  York  by 
a  French  chef,  on  a  French  steamer,  and  three  hours 
after  that  steamer  had  docked  the  Lucullus  with  a  slight 
lisp  was  dining  amid  his  satellites,  more  Galileo,  to  the 
music  of  a  French  Orchestra  reinforced  with  a  grand- 
opera  singer  who  sandwiched  The  Marseilles  between  two 
dubious  French  songs  first  made  known  to  the  world  by 
Yvette  Guilbert. 

But  that  great  waffle-iron  known  as  New  York  soon 
turned  Donnie  Eastman  from  an  individual  into  a  type. 
He  seemed  to  find  his  natural  element  more  and  more 
in  that  subterrania  so  mistakenly  denominated  as 
"Broadway"  life.  He  did  not  altogether  abjure  his 
clubs,  or  his  Indian  River  house-boat,  or  his  villa  at 
Villefranche,  or  his  lodge  in  the  Adirondacks.  But 
more  and  more  his  amusements  centred  about  women. 
This  meant  that  he  more  and  more  frequented  those 
planes  and  purlieus  where  the  gilt-lettered  decameron  of 
urban  night-life  is  written.  He  ruffled  it  along  the 
White  Light  Lane,  identifying  himself  with  that  lighter 
form  of  theatrical  entertainment  known  as  musical 
comedy.  Yet  even  here  his  activities  occasionally  took 
on  the  atmosphere  of  a  commercial  venture,  since  he 
found  as  keen  a  zest  in  backing  aspiring  personality,  in 
the  form  of  "  angel,"  as  he  had  once  found  in  backing 
race-horses,  in  the  form  of  owner.  While  this  brought 
him  no  immediate  personal  success,  it  sometimes  brought 
him  that  contiguity  with  success  which  occasionally  can 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  321 

be  almost  as  appeasing  as  success  itself.  It  brought  him, 
too,  into  contact  with  extremely  engaging  and  provoca 
tive  ladies,  amid  whom  in  their  idle  hours  he  fluttered  like 
a  pigeon  about  a  granary.  If  there  were  many  of  them 
that  he  desired,  it  may  also  be  written  that  there  were 
few  of  them  that  he  desired  for  long.  He  developed,  in 
fact,  into  an  assiduous  if  not  over-adept  hunter  of  heads, 
after  the  manner  of  the  Dyaks,  not  so  much  because  of 
any  intrinsic  value  of  the  heads,  but  more  because  of  the 
satisfaction  to  be  derived  from  their  acquisition. 

It  was  for  this  reason  that  Torrie  Throssel  had  chal 
lenged  him,  from  the  first.  She  had  always  laughingly 
but  alluringly  held  herself  beyond  his  reach.  She  had 
even  hurt  him,  at  times,  by  her  airy  contempt,  evading  his 
not  unsophisticated  machinations  towards  some  more  and 
more  personal  enmeshment,  even  mocking  his  slight  lisp 
and  smiling  at  his  vague  and  visionary  threats.  And  as 
he  was  more  rudimentary  than  he  appeared,  for  all  his 
craving  to  make  life  complex,  he  reacted  to  an  opposition 
so  novel  in  a  manner  quite  to  be  expected.  When  he 
wanted  a  thing,  he  wanted  it.  He  had  never  learned  to 
accept  actual  defeat.  He  declined  even  to  nurse  the 
thought  of  defeat.  And  that  which  evaded  him  only 
added  tang  to  a  triumph  deferred. 

All  this  he  had  intimated  to  Torrie,  on  more  occasions 
than  one,  but  never  more  frequently  and  forcibly  than 
during  the  tableaux  vivants  at  The  Biltmore.  But  she 
had  merely  smiled  down  at  him  from  her  abstracted  and 
shadowy  eyes,  allowing  him  to  advance  so  far,  and  no 
farther.  And  that  was  something  new  to  Donnie  East 
man.  She  stood  not  unflattered  by  his  desperation,  not 
unexhilarated  by  a  sense  of  power  born  of  her  growing 
mastery  over  his  moods  and  movements.  Nor  was  she, 
having  known  poverty,  altogether  ignorant  of  the  conso 
lations  of  wealth.  But  when,  in  his  desperation,  he  even 
admitted  his  willingness  to  marry  her,  protesting  that 
he  could  stand  for  the  "  Reno  racket  "  if  he  had  to,  she 


322  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

explained  to  him  that  she  was  really  serious  about  her 
stage-work  and  had  known  quite  enough  of  married  life, 
for  at  that  time  she  and  Storrow  were  ominously  unset 
tled  in  their  relations.  Donnie  had  then  bitterly  accused 
her  of  being  in  love  with  Krassler,  who  valued  her,  he 
protested,  only  as  a  human  phonograph.  Krassler,  he 
proclaimed,  would  make  her  a  star,  but  he  would  kill  her 
soul  and  break  her  spirit  in  the  process. 

"  And  what  will  you  do  ?  "  Torrie  had  calmly  asked 
him. 

"  I'll  give  you  the  biggest  house  on  Ocean  Drive,"  pro 
tested  Donnie. 

"  That,  Donnie  dear,  is  not  enough,''  Torrie  had  just 
as  calmly  replied,  slightly  in  doubt  as  to  what  particular 
city  "  Ocean  Drive  "  might  be  said  to  decorate. 

Donnie,  with  life  confronting  him  with  his  first  actual 
defeat,  resorted  to  that  meagre  consolation  which  may 
be  wrung  from  the  fermented  juice  of  the  grape.  He 
resorted  also  to  the  purchase  of  a  new  and  more  power 
ful  motor-car,  "which  he  took  a  hectic  joy  in  driving  at 
top-speed,  with  his  own  hand.  This  dull-toned  and 
over-engined  monster  of  power  he  preferred  to  drive 
stripped  of  its  top  —  very  much  as  old  drinkers  prefer 
to  take  their  spirits  neat  —  since  his  first  demand  was 
for  the  full  effect  of  speed.  Yet  neither  heavy  drinking 
nor  illegal  speeding  quite  sufficed  to  obliterate  the  trouble 
which  was  breaking  his  sleep  by  night  and  devastating 
his  life  by  day.  He  had  failed  in  the  first  big  want  of 
his  existence.  And  as  he  stood  unequipped  to  face  all 
such  failure,  he  eventually  broke  his  promise  to  Torrie 
and  after  twice  writing  to  her  he  tooled  his  huge  super- 
twelve  up  the  valley  of  the  Hudson  toward  the  Great 
Lakes. 

He  did  not  go  directly  into  Canada,  for  there  was  still 
some  trace  of  reason  in  his  madness.  But  he  motored 
to  the  border-city  of  Detroit,  making  that  point  the 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  323 

rendezvous  for  repeated  impatient  ventures  along  the 
highways  of  western  Ontario.  He  was  drinking  heavily 
again,  and  his  driving  along  these  highways  was  not  al 
ways  controlled.  This  he  realized  when  he  came  to  a 
sharp  bend  in  the  Lake  Road  a  few  miles  east  of  Leam 
ington.  There  the  highway,  turning  sharply  back  from 
the  eroded  lake-cliffs,  formed  an  acute  angle  which  could 
be  safely  approached  only  at  a  low  rate  of  speed.  But 
low  rates  of  speed  were  obnoxious  to  Donnie,  even  in 
unknown  territory,  and  the  result  was  that  although  he 
saved  his  car  from  caroming  straight  out  over  the  cliff- 
edge,  he  went  crashing  and  uncontrolled  into  the  road 
side  fence. 

He  climbed  down  from  the  stalled  car  and  walked  un 
steadily  out  to  the  edge  of  the  cliff.  There  was  a  sheer 
fall,  he  saw,  of  almost  a  hundred  feet.  He  was  still 
staring  down  at  the  crawling  lake-waves  tipped  with 
white  when  a  stooped-shouldered  and  much  bewhiskered 
native  with  a  pitch-fork  over  his  shoulder  came  and 
walked  inquisitively  about  the  car  with  the  broken  head 
lights.  Having  completed  that  inspection,  he  just  as  in 
quisitively  inspected  the  moody-eyed  stranger  returning 
from  the  cliff-edge. 

"  Had  a  smash-up,  eh?  "  he  cheerily  inquired. 

"  No ;  this  is  the  way  I  always  stop  at  a  corner,"  an 
nounced  Donnie  Eastman,  with  a  snap  of  his  thin  jaws. 
He  had  an  odd  affection  for  that  huge-engined  car  of  his, 
and  willing  as  he  was  to  over-drive  it,  he  hated  to  see 
bodily  harm  done  to  it.  Only  that  day,  as  he  crossed  on 
the  ferry  to  Windsor,  a  wharf-rat  in  looking  it  over  had 
said,  with  the  rising  inflection  of  inarticulate  admiration : 
"  Some  car! "  And  Donnie  was  in  no  wise  prepared  to 
disagree  with  him. 

"  So  that's  how  yeh  stop  ?  Hee-hee !  Guess  it'd  pay 
yeh  to  keep  on  a-goin',  then,"  responded  the  native  with 
the  pitch- fork. 


324  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  Well,  it's  a  hell  of  a  road  you  hicks  around  here  give 
a  man  to  keep  going  on,"  retorted  Donnie,  turning  to 
investigate  the  extent  of  the  damage. 

"  Right  yeh  air,  stranger,  and  I've  told  th'  Reeve  as 
much  as  three  times  in  the  past  month  somethin'  ought  'o 
be  done  about  ironin'  out  this  here  flare-back,  now  that 
so  many  rabbit-heads  be  a-motorin'  along  the  lake  front, 
disregardin'  the  road-laws  'bout  the  same  as  they  disre 
gard  common-sense.  It  gives  th'  County  a  bad  name, 
havin'  a  turn  in  the  finest  bit  o'  road  in  the  township 
known  as  Death's  Curve.  And  old  Eph  Johnson  has 
hed  to  re-wire  that  bit  o'  fence  o'  his  no  less'n  seven  times 
in  one  summer !  " 

But  Donnie  was  less  interested  in  Eph  Johnson's  mis 
fortunes  and  rural  road-building  than  he  was  in  re-start 
ing  his  car  and  disentangling  its  fenders  from  fence-wire 
and  beholding  it  crawl  safely  back  to  the  road-bed.  He 
went  on  his  way  feeling  that  all  life  was  against  him,  that 
nothing  much  remained  to  live  for,  and  that  it  wouldn't 
have  mattered  a  great  deal  even  if  he  had  taken  that  final 
leap  out  over  the  cliff-edge  at  Death's  Curve.  Yet  be 
fore  the  end  of  an  hour,  as  he  sped  eastward,  he  came 
face  to  face  with  Torrie  Throssel. 

He  parked  the  car  in  a  buttonwood  grove  down  a  side- 
road  and  walked  back  to  meet  her.  She  was  nervous 
and  guarded,  but  she  was  not  altogether  antagonistic,  for 
his  presence  there  had  at  least  brought  a  splash  of  colour 
into  the  monotony  of  her  endless  and  over-drab  days. 
There  was  satisfaction,  too,  in  the  discovery  that  time 
had  brought  no  diminution  in  her  power  over  him.  But 
she  insisted  on  discretion.  And  as  they  sat  on  the  run 
ning-board  of  the  car  behind  the  fluttering-leafed  grove 
of  buttonwoods,  smoking  their  last  cigarettes  together, 
she  promised  to  meet  him  again  in  two  days'  time. 

They  met  again,  as  arranged,  but  something  in  Don- 
nie's  bloodshot  eyes  and  the  unsteadiness  of  his  hands 
prompted  to  make  Torrie  wary.  She  cut  the  meeting 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  325 

short,  protesting  that  she  could  talk  to  him  only  when  he 
was  sober.  She  was  equally  disturbed  in  spirit  when 
they  met  for  the  third  time,  the  following  week.  And 
still  again  she  told  him,  as  plainly  as  she  could,  that  his 
hopes  were  useless,  that  she  could  not  ever  see  him  again. 
Yet  she  yielded  to  his  persistence  when  he  steadily  and 
stubbornly  demanded  that  she  at  least  have  one  last  ride 
with  him. 

She  sat  beside  him,  with  a  watchful  eye  divided  be 
tween  the  road  and  the  speedometer-dial,  knowing  that 
he  was  not  himself,  and  still  further  disturbed  when  he 
began  to  quote  to  her  what  he  described  as  a  poem  of 
Browning's : 

"  I  and  my  mistress,  side  by  side, 
Shall  be  together,  breathe,  and  ride."  .  .  . 

Then  he  slowed  down,  not  because  of  her  cry  of  warn 
ing,  but  to  reach  into  the  door-pocket  beside  him  and  take 
out  a  leather-covered  flask.  He  needed  a  nip  of  brandy, 
he  explained,  to  steady  his  nerves. 

He  merely  laughed  when  Torrie,  with  troubled  eyes, 
told  him  to  drive  slowly.  He  thrust  a  toe  down  on  the 
accelerator,  as  he  had  done  so  often  before  when  some 
lighter-spirited  chorus-girl  had  called  out  to  him :  "  Step 
on  her  tail,  Sweetie!"  For  he  liked  that  feeling  of 
power,  the  power  of  a  god,  under  his  foot-lever.  It 
transported  him  to  some  higher  plane.  It  converted  the 
sound  of  the  wind  against  his  ear-drums  into  a  long 
trumpeting  of  triumph.  Two  eagernesses  nested  in  his 
narrow  body  as  he  sat  there,  with  the  dusty  miles  swim 
ming  under  his  foot-boards.  One  was  the  eagerness  for 
rapture,  the  other  was  the  eagerness  for  expenditure. 
That,  in  fact,  was  all  that  his  life  had  been  designed  for, 
all  that  he  had  ever  been  capable  of.  Existence  itself 
was  beyond  his  control,  but  he  sat  the  king  of  this  ma 
chine  of  winged  wheels.  There  he  seemed  to  become  the 
culmination  of  all  endeavour,  the  ultimate  flower  of  all 


;::  THE  WDCE  OF  UFE 

7 ~~. ;  ~    f . "  :  T  r~ "  -_  ~. :. .      :. '-  7~ ~~.      " : .:  j ."."  i. .  _  ~~.^~.  ~  ~f :  ~    'i'.'.i  L 
ior  it  in  Ac  Imwds  of  €he  earth  and  tapped  Ac  veins 

:  :   :  •:      ..  -  -;      ;  ji-   : :  -   -  -  :  I-:.T  vi"-:  .:->    ::  '-:~rr 
"Wine  are  «c  goio^?"*  Tonic  cried  out  in  alarm 

Li    -    :    -----  ~ .-  i::    r.i--~"-rr'.5    :'.-:    1 1    :"    ihe 
IT;    :   ~"  "  r    •""..'.    ~t        "if    _•::_". t  r 
;  -.'.    •"'.-"''•:.    n  •'•:  ~. f-t 

.    ::   "    --       -  imit    li^r      >r.t   ::i..ti    :  ~~.    ~:::.~~ 

----.  -.\    :•;  ;li2i::r     :'::  -::-  '   :.- 
-irir  i : :  i . :  :  :  : ..  ~:. 

ng  with  me!  ~  he  solcnr/  repeated,  with 
-r   :  i-  i  -    :-  ih=    Lrrt'.rn::  -       Hz 


•   --- 


THE  WIXE  OF  LJFE 

.1:  :•  i  rr.r  :.-•:•:  li"rbt-:  L:  in:  :•:  --:  r.o- 
' '  r. "•- .  ii  i"~  i "  '.  r  i '  i r.  i  "~".'-  -'  -.  L  • 

.;•;          Jl_:     I  I  n "  T  I  .          L-      _'I1.'J"_       _" 

rJh-tri:   •    i    --    :  :     r.:i  n:  i:     i    -:  -  _t  : 

".  i .". -.  r  ~~ ~ "  '.'  ~ '-  i  '.  ~  '  • '  ~  -.  '- '  "-  -  '  -  '-'  - 
"  :~~^~  -.  .  r  i : :":. '  i  *  :  "  .  ~.  ~.  :  ~  :  ~  ~-.  - 
~~.  '.'.  ':-•  ":::::-:  .  - :  i :  "••:  iTiir 

:- 
.:--  : 


i;i: 


r  r    "  1 " '  1 

i   :    :.  rr 


328  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

as  theirs.  That  upward  leap  of  the  flying  car,  combined 
with  her  own  instinctive  and  galvanic  movement,  served 
to  send  her  body  catapulting  high  in  the  air,  where  it 
described  a  broken  arc  not  unlike  an  equestrian  tumbler 
attempting  a  deliberate  and  measured  somersault,  and 
then  fell  huddled  across  the  barb-wires  of  the  road- 
fence,  from  which  it  rebounded  like  a  body  falling  into 
a  fireman's  net,  and  lay  face  downward  on  the  dust-cov 
ered  grass. 

But  the  car  itself  did  not  stop.  Its  driver,  held  closely 
in  place  by  the  wheel,  remained  where  he  sat  as  the  en- 
gined  monster  of  steel  plunged  through  the  wire  fencing, 
leaped  to  the  cliff-edge,  and  from  there  out  into  space, 
where  it  turned  in  one  leisurely  half-circle  before  falling 
top-down  into  the  gravelly  shallows  of  the  lake. 


Torrie  lay  for  what  seemed  a  long  time  with  her  face 
pressed  down  against  the  dusty  grass,  stunned  into  in- 
differency,  without  even  the  desire  for  movement.  Then 
consciousness  came  back  to  her,  and  with  it  a  memory  of 
undefined  catastrophe,  and  with  that  again  a  nauseous 
weakness  of  the  body  which  she  had  to  fight  against. 
Then  her  thoughts  grew  clearer  and  she  sat  up.  After 
that  she  found  not  even  a  shadow  of  doubt  with  which  to 
console  her  shaken  mind.  He  must  have  been  killed! 

She  crawled  along  the  dry  grass  to  the  cliff-edge,  pain 
fully  and  slowly,  for  the  barbs  of  the  wire-fencing  on 
which  she  had  been  thrown,  penetrating  several  thick 
nesses  of  clothing,  had  torn  her  leg  just  above  the  knee. 
At  the  lip  of  the  cliff  she  lay  stretched  out,  face  down, 
studying  the  monstrous  sight  of  the  over-turned  car,  be- 
wilderingly  uncouth  and  complicated  in  that  attitude  of 
visceral  betrayals,  lying  in  at  least  three  feet  of  lake- 
water.  He  was  dead.  There  could  be  no  doubt  of  that. 
Donnie  Eastman  was  dead. 

She  fought  back  a  momentary  feeling  of  faintness  as 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  329 

she  edged  away  from  the  cliff.  Then,  with  a  guilty  look 
back  along  the  road,  and  with  her  teeth  still  chattering, 
she  tore  away  a  portion  of  her  underskirt  and  with  it 
bound  up  her  cut  and  bleeding  knee.  Then,  still  watch 
ing  the  road,  she  crept  eastward  along  the  inner  fence- 
line,  passing  through  a  stretch  of  woodland,  skirting  the 
rail-fence  of  an  orchard,  and  losing  herself  again  in  a 
field  of  rustling  corn  much  higher  than  her  head.  In  this 
way  she  travelled  until  she  felt  her  strength  giving  out. 
So  she  headed  north  again  until  she  came  to  the  road  that 
ran  along  the  lake-ridge.  There  she  was  overtaken  by  a 
red-faced  woman  driving  a  Ford  car  with  its  back  seat 
piled  high  with  egg-crates,  a  red- faced,  sedate-souled, 
homely-mannered  woman  who,  on  noticing  her  limp, 
drew  up  at  the  roadside  and  inquired  if  she  could  give 
the  girl  with  the  white  face  and  the  tortured  eyes  a  lift. 

Torrie  was  glad  of  that  lift.  She  explained,  as  they 
once  more  got  under  way,  that  she  had  given  a  bad  twist 
to  her  weak  ankle,  and  had  felt  that  walking  would  be 
the  best  thing  for  it.  She  listened  patiently  to  long  and 
explicit  directions  as  to  more  efficacious  medication  for 
the  same,  grateful  enough  to  remember  that  every  minute 
put  still  greater  distance  between  her  and  the  scene  of  a 
horror  that  was  still  unthinkable. 

The  light  had  begun  to  fade  by  the  time  she  reached  the 
broken  stone  gate-pillars  of  Pine-Brae.  But  on  arriving 
at  the  house  she  found,  to  her  great  relief,  that  Owen 
was  not  yet  back  with  his  load  of  cement  that  was  needed 
for  the  rebuilding  of  the  root-cellar.  So  she  repeated 
her  story  of  the  sprained  ankle  to  the  startled  and  sympa 
thetic  Uncle  Abe,  who  promptly  fell  to  toting  linen- 
bandages  and  warm  water  and  hot  coffee  to  Torrie's  bed 
room,  supplemented  with  a  precious  and  never-failing 
bottle  of  liniment  from  that  anxious-eyed  old  servitor's 
own  walnut  chest.  But  Torrie,  once  she  was  safely  in 
bed,  found  herself  suffering  from  a  smart  which  no  lini 
ment  could  allay  and  a  wound  which  no  linen  could  bind 


330  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

up.  She  lay  there,  anxiously  watching  for  her  husband's 
return,  remembering  that  a  great  deal  would  depend  on 
the  nature  of  that  return.  She  had  had  proof  enough,  in 
the  past,  of  the  incredible  rapidity  with  which  news  could 
travel  up  and  down  the  entire  lake  shore,  by  what  was 
known  as  "  moccasin  telegraph."  She  knew  that  before 
another  day  had  passed,  perhaps  even  before  another 
day  had  dawned,  newspapers  would  appear  with  their 
printed  recountal  of  what  had  happened  at  Death's  Curve. 
Already,  she  surmised,  the  telegraph  wires  were  busy 
with  their  first  unorganized  details  of  the  case.  It  would 
be  easy  enough,  she  remembered,  to  identify  both  the  car 
and  the  body.  And  Owen  would  know  that  Bonnie 
Eastman  had  been  in  Canada,  had  been  in  the  neighbour 
hood. 

He  would  know,  she  acknowledged ;  but  how  much 
would  he  know  ?  There  was  no  material  evidence  to  con 
nect  her  in  person  with  the  accident,  for  surely,  in  the 
end,  it  would  be  accepted  as  an  accident.  It  depended 
solely  on  the  way  in  which  she  continued  to  play  out  her 
part.  And  luck,  so  far,  had  favoured  her. 

It  was  nearly  eight  o'clock  when  Storrow  returned  to 
the  house.  That  alone  was  a  somewhat  disquieting  oc 
currence.  He  came  quietly,  moving  about  the  outer 
rooms  with  what  seemed  the  listlessness  of  a  very  weary 
man.  Torrie,  lifting  her  head  from  the  pillow,  could 
hear  him  ask  for  her,  just  as  she  could  hear  Uncle  Abe's 
excited  and  somewhat  amplified  description  of  the  in 
jured  ankle.  This  was  followed  by  a  silence,  a  fortify 
ing  and  yet  a  disquieting  silence,  a  silence  that  might  mean 
anything.  A  minute  later  Torrie's  room-door  was 
pushed  open  and  Storrow  stepped  inside. 

"  Are  you  hurt?  "  he  asked,  very  quietly,  coming  to  a 
stop  in  the  centre  of  the  darkened  room. 

Still  again,  and  with  a  coldness  of  tone  which  she  could 
not  fight  back,  she  repeated  the  story  of  the  turned 
ankle. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  331 

"Where  did  this  happen?"  asked  her  husband. 

"  A  little  way  up  the  Ridge  Road,"  she  told  him. 

"  How  did  you  get  back  to  Pine-Brae?  "  was  his  next 
question. 

"  I  was  given  a  ride  by  a  farmer's  wife  in  a  Ford  car," 
she  told  him.  He  stood  silent  for  a  moment  or  two. 

"  Is  there  anything  I  can  do  for  you?  "  he  finally  asked. 

"  No,"  she  replied,  matching  the  iciness  of  his  voice 
with  the  iciness  of  her  own.  "  Uncle  Abe  has  brought  me 
everything  I  need." 

He  seemed  on  the  point  of  saying  something,  but  on 
second  thought  preferred  remaining  silent.  He  turned 
and  stepped  out  of  the  room,  closing  the  door  behind 
him. 

Torrie  did  not  sleep  that  night.  He  knew.  She  felt 
sure  that  he  knew.  So  shaken  did  she  feel  in  body  and 
mind  that  she  remained  in  bed  for  the  rest  of  the  week, 
brooding  in  silence  over  what  she  was  secretly  longing  to 
ventilate  by  open  speech.  But  nothing  more  was  said, 
during  all  her  period  of  recuperation,  by  Storrow  when 
he  came  regularly  but  briefly  to  inquire  after  her  prog 
ress.  Nor  was  anything  said  when  she  had  emerged  from 
her  room  and  once  more  projected  herself  into  the  placidly 
moving  life  of  Pine-Brae. 

Torrie  and  Storrow  were  in  daily  contact,  spending, 
in  fact,  many  hours  of  each  day  together.  Yet  they 
were  not  together.  Between  them,  always,  there  loomed 
a  wall  of  reticence  as  solid  as  concrete.  Each  went  about 
armoured  in  steely  reservations,  oppressed  not  only  by  a 
sense  of  suspended  action  but  also  by  the  consciousness 
of  covert  and  silent  scrutiny.  This,  to  Torrie,  became 
almost  unendurable.  She  would  have  preferred  open 
contention  and  quarrelling  to  any  such  false  calm  of  wait 
ing  and  watching.  But  it  was  not  in  her  power  to  end  it. 

So  seeing  that  it  was  not  to  be  ended,  as  the  weeks 
dragged  by,  she  achieved  a  belated  and  somewhat  des 
perate  decision  to  make  the  best  of  it.  Sometimes  she 


332  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

even  ventured  out  into  the  open  and  joined  Sforrow  in 
his  farm-work,  fretted  by  a  perverse  inclination  to  be 
near  him,  as  though  rinding  in  that  physical  propinquity 
some  atonement  for  an  inner  estrangement  which  they 
could  no  longer  hope  to  heal.  One  cool  autumn  morning 
when  the  sun  fell  clear  and  flat  on  their  southern-sloping 
peach-orchard  she  joined  him  in  the  long  aisles  of  green 
and  wine-red  branches  weighed  down  with  their  fruit, 
globes  of  down-covered  yellow  and  pink,  faintly  aroma 
tic,  which  she  took  a  delight  in  breaking  away  from  their 
stems. 

"  These  Crawfords  are  too  small  and  scabby,"  he  com 
plained. 

"  But  look  at  that  basketful  with  the  sun  on  them," 
she  said,  with  the  uncritical  joy  of  the  city-bred  in  par 
taking  of  the  providence  of  nature.  "  They  are  lovely." 

But  her  husband  shook  his  head. 

"  They'll  only  sell  as  seconds.  This  orchard  wasn't 
sprayed  last  spring,  and  it's  run  to  wood.  A  peach  or 
chard  doesn't  last  long,  anyway.  It's  a  question  whether 
I'd  better  not  clear  it  away  next  year." 

"  Next  year,"  she  repeated,  squatting  down  on  the 
ground  beside  the  basket  of  peaches.  She  sat  staring 
along  the  narrow  aisle  of  green  and  wine-red  foliage, 
staring  with  unseeing  eyes  off  into  the  distance. 

"Aren't  they  worth  saving?"  she  asked  out  of  the 
silence  that  had  fallen  over  them  both. 

"  It's  too  late,"  he  replied  as  he  moved  his  ladder  to 
another  side  of  the  tree.  Yet  their  eyes  met  as  he  stood 
arrested  in  sudden  thought.  For  to  each  of  them,  ap 
parently,  had  come  the  quick  impression  of  something 
symbolic  in  that  statement. 

It  was  a  week  later  that  Torrie  returned  to  Pine-Brae 
ojie  afternoon  with  the  mail,  an  unusual  touch  of  colour 
on  the  faint  hollow  of  the  cheeks  from  which  the  mid 
summer  tan  was  beginning  to  fade.  Storrow,  who  had 
joined  her  in  becoming  an  adept  at  reading  any  accidental 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  333 

signs  that  might  flash  through  their  silences,  was  not 
long  in  discovering  that  something  out-of-the-way  had 
happened.  The  exact  nature  of  this,  however,  was  not 
made  known  by  Torrie  until  towards  the  end  of  their 
evening  meal. 

"  I've  just  had  a  letter  from  Herman  Krassler,"  she 
offhandedly  announced,  after  a  somewhat  prolonged 
period  of  speechlessness. 

"  I  thought  so,"  he  admitted,  as  their  eyes  met.  And 
so  established  was  her  Indian  Summer  of  silent  timidi 
ties  that  her  colour  deepened  even  in  the  face  of  her  care 
less  reaching  out  for  a  cigarette  and  her  equally  careless 
movement  as  she  struck  a  match  and  slowly  inhaled  and 
exhaled  a  thin  cloud  of  smoke. 

"What  made  you  think  so?"  she  asked,  as  imper 
sonally  as  she  could. 

"  He's  about  the  last  of  the  —  of  the  interested  ones 
who  remain,"  was  her  husband's  reply,  not  without  its 
touch  of  latent  bitterness.  And  again  her  colour  deep 
ened.  But  this  did  not  frighten  her  away  from  the  sub 
ject  in  hand. 

"  Krassler,"  she  went  on  with  a  quiet  resolution  which 
brought  a  minute  quaver  to  her  otherwise  well-controlled 
voice,  "  writes  that  he  has  a  part  waiting  for  me." 

Storrow  did  not  look  up  at  her. 

"  He  always  has  a  part  waiting  for  you,  hasn't  he?" 
he  demanded.  Yet  a  moment  later  he  bore  the  appear 
ance  of  a  man  who  regretted  what  he  had  said.  And 
Torrie  herself  did  not  choose  to  reply  to  that  question. 

"  I  think  I  ought  to  take  it,"  she  said,  instead. 

"Why?"  asked  her  husband,  not  altogether  deceived 
by  the  note  of  hesitancy  she  had  succeeded  in  throwing 
into  that  statement. 

"  Because  things  can't  keep  on  like  this,"  she  an 
nounced,  meeting  Storrow's  gaze  with  a  sudden  flash  of 
audacity. 

"  They  won't,"  he  told  her. 


334  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"Why  won't  they?"  she  asked.  Her  face  looked 
fatigued,  and  touched  with  age.  He  realized,  as  he 
stared  at  her,  that  she  was  no  longer  a  girl,  but  a  woman 
who  must  have  explored  life  to  its  heights  and  its  depths. 

"  Because  we  can't  let  them,"  he  said,  with  his  own 
face  shadowed  as  what  seemed  the  hopelessness  of  the 
situation  reasserted  itself. 

"  That's  why  I  think  it  would  be  so  much  better  if  I 
took  this  part  when  I've  the  chance,"  she  explained,  once 
more  completely  mistress  of  herself.  "  It's  only  for 
eight  or  nine  weeks,  apparently,  until  Orris  Ormonde 
can  get  back  from  Europe  in  time  to  take  it  over.  And 
eight  or  nine  weeks  like  that  ought  to  give  us  a  chance 
of  getting  things  back  into  perspective.  Don't  you  think 
that  I'm  right?" 

He  did  not  answer  her,  for  he  was  busy,  at  the  mo 
ment,  trying  to  picture  what  Pine-Brae  would  be  like 
without  her.  And  his  heart  sank,  in  spite  of  himself,  at 
the  prospect  of  what  lay  before  him.  Yet  it  was  inevita 
ble,  inescapable.  Torrie,  he  knew,  had  already  come  to 
her  decision.  He  just  as  clearly  saw,  too,  that  her 
euphuism  as  to  its  being  merely  a  temporary  absence  was 
grimly  akin  to  the  blindfolding  of  two  unfortunates 
about  to  face  the  firing-squad.  It  would  be  forever. 
He  knew  it,  and  she  knew  it ;  yet  each  of  them  remained 
too  cowardly  to  admit  it,  too  weak  to  face  it  in  its  bald 
and  unqualified  ugliness. 

'  You'd  surely  go  back  to  New  York  for  the  winter 
months?  "  she  was  asking. 

He  had  never  thought  of  that.  But  thought  was  be 
ing  suddenly  and  sternly  forced  into  unexplored  channels. 

"  Yes,  I  think  I'd  go  back  for  the  winter  months,"  he 
asserted.  And  it  was  her  turn  to  be  secretly  harassed 
by  the  look  of  age  and  unhappiness  on  the  other's  face. 
"  Then  that  makes  everything  simple  enough,"  she 
announced,  almost  with  triumph.  "  I've  always  hated  to 
think  of  you  as  alone  up  here." 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  335 

"Then  you  have  thought  about  it?"  he  asked,  very 
quietly.  Still  again  the  faint  tinge  of  colour  flowed  into 
her  cheeka,  but  the  obligation  to  answer  his  question 
seemed  to  vanish  with  the  advent  of  Uncle  Abe,  who  had 
come  to  clear  the  table.  Both  Torrie  and  Storrow,  how 
ever,  knew  that  the  matter  had  been  settled. 

She  set  about  her  packing  methodically  and  calmly, 
grateful  for  the  liberty  of  movement  which  her  hus 
band's  pretence  at  preoccupation  with  the  field-work  was 
giving  her.  Yet  it  was  a  process  which  prolonged  itself 
into  a  matter  of  several  days,  ably  as  the  lachrymose  old 
Uncle  Abe  came  to  her  help  with  flat-iron  and  wash 
board  and  polishing-brush.  They  were  strange  days  of 
silences  and  repressed  emotions  and  trivialities  which  had 
the  trick  of  assuming  prodigious  and  disturbing  signifi 
cances. 

"  Ah  rakon  you'll  be  totin'  that  houn'  dawg  along  wif 
you,  Mis'  Torrie?"  Uncle  Abe  asked  with  an  audible 
sniffle  as  Skookum,  sensing  some  untoward  change, 
whined  and  whimpered  about  the  shadowy  living-room. 

"  No;  I'll  not  take  Skookum,"  said  Torrie,  after  a  mo 
ment  or  two  of  solemn  thought.  She  called  the  pup  to 
her  and  bent  down  to  caress  the  nervous  and  pointed  nose. 
"  Poor  old  Skookum,"  she  said  again  and  again.  Then 
she  stood  up  and  looked  out  over  the  lake  and  again 
stared  down  at  the  animal  with  his  nozzle  against  her 
leather-shod  ankle.  "  I  wonder  if  he  will  remember 
me?" 

"  He  shore  will,  Mis'  Torrie,"  was  Uncle  Abe's  dog 
gedly  valiant  retort.  "  And  Ah  raikon  we  all  shore 
will!" 

The  day  for  her  departure  came  with  a  steady  south 
east  wind,  unusually  mild  for  that  time  of  the  year.  It 
left  the  clay  road  to  the  county-seat  muddy  and  deep- 
rutted,  so  that  Storrow,  as  he  drove  the  farm-team  hitched 
to  the  covered  fruit-wagon  with  Torrie's  trunks  piled 
high  behind  them,  found  excuse  enough  for  his  silences 


336  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

in  the  attention  which  he  had  to  give  to  his  driving.  And 
he  was  anxious  that  the  wait  at  the  railway-station  should 
be  as  short  as  it  could  be  managed  with  safety. 

Thanks  to  the  rain  and  the  heavy  roads,  that  long- 
dreaded  wait  proved  to  be  mercifully  brief.  By  the 
time  Storrow  had  bought  tickets  and  checked  trunks  and 
returned  from  making  sure  that  his  team  was  safely  tied, 
the  long  whistle  of  the  incoming  express  could  be  heard 
through  the  quietly  falling  rain. 

Torrie's  face  blanched.  She  looked  up  at  her  husband, 
with  the  set  jaw-muscles  of  his  lean  face  showing  through 
the  tanned  and  wind-roughened  face,  and  her  lip  quiv 
ered. 

"  Oh,  Owen,"  she  said,  foolishly,  as  her  tears  began  to 
flow. 

"  It's  all  right,"  he  assured  her,  scarcely  knowing  what 
he  was  saying.  "  It's  all  right." 

He  carried  her  two  hand-bags  to  the  edge  of  the  wet 
platform.  She  followed  him,  her  face  contorted  with 
misery. 

"  We  can't ! "  she  suddenly  cried  out.  "  We  can't  go 
this  way  —  we  can't !  " 

He  imagined,  for  one  weak  moment,  that  she  had  re 
lented  of  all  her  purpose,  that  the  thought  of  flight  was 
proving  too  much  for  her.  And  then  he  remembered. 
He  remembered  that  it  was  inevitable,  and  that  it  was 
for  ever. 

"  Kiss  me,  Owen,"  Torrie  was  whispering  to  him,  with 
upturned  face,  for  the  dripping  train  had  come  to  a  stop 
beside  them  and  a  porter  had  thrown  open  the  Pullman 
end-door.  "Kiss  me!" 

He  took  her  suddenly  and  almost  fiercely  in  his  arms 
and  kissed  her.  He  kissed  her  tenderly,  with  a  tightening 
of  the  throat  which  made  it  hard  for  him  to  breathe. 
He  heard  the  conductor's  impersonally  yodelled  "  Ail- 
aboard  "  and  saw  the  coloured  porter  lift  the  two  hand 
bags  into  the  car  after  her.  He  saw  the  train  get  under 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  337 

way,  the  last  car  pass  the  platform,  the  early  lit  tail- 
lights  grow  misty  and  vanish  in  the  falling  rain.  When 
he  turned  slowly  about  and  splashed  through  mud  and 
water  to  where  his  team  stood  waiting,  steaming  in  the 
wet  air,  he  carried  on  his  lips  a  taste  of  brine,  from  the 
lips  he  had  loved  and  never  in  all  his  life  would  kiss 
again. 


CHAPTER    TWENTY-EIGHT 

STORROW,  when  he  returned  to  New  York  two 
months  later,  went  back  to  the  city  with  the  feeling 
that  he  was  re-entering  an  arena.     He  went  back 
oppressed  by  a  sense  of  defeat,  defeat  which  in  some  way 
must  be  converted  into  victory. 

Those  intervening  weeks  at  Pine-Brae,  after  Torrie's 
departure,  had  been  anything  but  happy  weeks.  The 
place  seemed  too  permeated  with  her  presence,  too  haunted 
with  unexpectedly  disturbing  memories.  He  did  what 
he  could  to  purge  it  of  these,  by  quietly  yet  studiously 
removing  every  possible  trace  of  her,  from  the  over-run 
kid-slippers  which  Skookum  delighted  in  carrying  into 
the  open  to  the  accordion-pleated  silk  underskirt,  worn 
through  at  the  edges,  which  still  hung  behind  her  bed 
room  door.  But  there  were  less  material  things  which 
could  not  be  hidden  awray,  aromas  and  associations  and 
reminiscences  which  reached  out  like  unseen  hands  to 
draw  him  aside  to  that  past  on  which  he  had  determined 
to  turn  his  back.  And  the  loneliness  of  the  old  house,  as 
the  days  grew  shorter  and  the  south-east  winds  brought 
the  waves  pounding  mournfully  and  continually  against 
the  lake  cliffs,  became  unendurable.  So  Storrow  set 
about  making  his  arrangements  for  departure.  These 
kept  him  busy  for  a  fortnight  made  doubly  miserable  by 
alternating  snow  and  rain  and  wind,  so  that  when  he  fi 
nally  landed  in  New  York,  still  basking  under  a  belated 
stretch  of  warm  and  balmy  sunlight,  it  seemed  like  a  mi 
gration  into  a  tumultuous  but  an  infinitely  merrier  world. 
Nor  did  Storrow  return  without  a  definitely  mapped 
outline  of  conduct.  He  had  known  too  much  of  drift- 

338 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  339 

ing.  For  too  long  he  had  stood  merely  marking  time. 
He  found  himself  possessed  by  a  second  wind  of  ambi 
tion,  an  impatience  to  assert  himself,  a  hunger  to  re-enter 
that  world  from  which  circumstances  not  of  his  own 
choosing  seemed  to  have  elbowed  him.  To  this  end  he 
had  consulted  his  over-pompous  Park  Committee  in  the 
matter  of  the  long-deferred  statue  of  Tecumseh,  pointing 
out  to  them  his  decision  that  an  exedra  with  a  decorative 
frieze,  surmounted  by  a  figure  in  heroic  size,  would  be 
more  effective  than  the  earlier  considered  life-size  figure 
of  the  Chieftain  on  a  block  of  Scotch  granite.  It  was 
only  after  much  argument,  and  much  consultation  over 
costs  and  specifications  and  sketch-models,  that  the  newer 
and  more  ambitious  plan  was  agreed  to,  although  that 
agreement  came  with  a  number  of  more  or  less  absurd 
qualifications  which  he  accepted  and  interpreted  as  a  mere 
sop  to  his  directors'  personal  dignity.  But  when  he  re 
turned  to  the  city,  and  to  the  old  Twenty-Fourth  Street 
studio  which  he  had  decided  to  use  now  merely  as  a  work 
room,  he  began  to  nurse  the  relieving  knowledge  of  elab 
orate  and  engrossing  tasks  ahead  of  him. 

He  had  need  for  this.  He  felt  a  hunger  for  order 
after  disorder,  for  stability  after  confusion.  He  began 
to  see  what  Chester  Hardy  had  meant  by  that  often  re 
peated  word  of  "  organization."  And  Hardy  himself, 
on  his  return  to  the  city  after  an  autumn  of  secluded  toil 
in  a  fellow-artist's  abandoned  villa  at  Lennox,  seemed 
to  realize  the  younger  man's  predicament.  He  did  more 
than  merely  gather  up  the  broken  threads  of  friendship. 
He  did  all  that  lay  in  his  power  to  warp  Storrow  back 
into  the  duly  buoyed  and  buoyant  channels  of  life.  He 
entered  into  benevolent  conspiracies  with  Charlotte  to  re- 
enmesh  her  sober-eyed  cousin  in  the  activities  of  that  up 
per  world  from  which  he  had  shown  a  tendency  to  turn 
away.  And  Storrow,  swinging  back  with  the  pendulum, 
surrendered  to  these  gentle  propulsions.  He  nursed  an 
active  enough  craving  for  the  respectabilities  of  life,  just 
as  he  had  always  nursed  an  innate  distaste  for  that  dis- 


340  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

ordered  province  of  laxness  and  license  which  is  known  as 
bohemia. 

But  his  surrender  was  not  as  complete  as  it  appeared. 
He  went  about,  for  all  his  pretences  of  preoccupation, 
carrying  the  secret  conviction  that  the  most  vital  issue  of 
life  had  been  left  in  the  air,  as  grotesque  and  unfinished 
as  the  span  of  an  abandoned  bridge.  The  memory  of 
his  marriage  did  not  trouble  him  so  much  during  those 
first  few  weeks,  when  he  knew  that  Torrie  was  out  "  on 
the  road."  It  was  not  until  her  return  to  New  York 
that  the  situation  began  to  perplex  him.  He  read  the 
announcements  that  she  was  about  to  emerge  as  a  full- 
fledged  star  in  Smoke  Signals,  a  new  play  by  a  new 
.but  neurotic  author  whom  Krassler  had  disinterred  from 
a  hydropathic  resort  at  Mount  Clemens.  Then  followed 
a  campaign  of  that  publicity  which  emanates  from  im 
aginative  press-agents,  artfully  fabricated  romances  of 
Torrie  Throssel's  origin  and  early  youth,  discreetly  cen 
sored  recountals  of  her  past  stage  experiences,  and  fit 
tingly  picturesque  descriptions  of  her  coming  role,  of  her 
expensive  costumes,  of  her  love  for  animals  and  her  ec 
centric  methods  of  study. 

None  of  these,  Storrow  found  to  his  great  relief,  con 
tained  any  reference  to  her  marriage.  When  portraits 
of  her  began  to  appear  in  theatrical  weeklies  and  Sunday 
supplements,  he  studied  these  patently  new  photographs 
with  great  care,  disturbed,  as  a  rule,  by  certain  changes 
in  that  only  too  well-known  face,  changes  which  he  could 
not  quite  decipher.  They  merely  seemed  to  accentuate 
her  remoteness,  just  as  the  press-agent  paragraphs,  as 
suavely  untruthful  as  obituaries,  tended  to  translate  her 
more  and  more  into  the  legendary.  There  were  times, 
however,  when  it  struck  him  as  odd  that  both  he  and 
Torrie  should  be  working  in  the  same  city  and  yet  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  remain  as  completely  separated  as 
the  poles.  His  own  days,  it  is  true,  had  become  more 
and  more  crowded,  especially  after  his  decision  to  study 


THE  ,WINE  OF  LIFE  341 

architecture  for  a  few  months  in  one  of  the  larger  city 
offices,  since  the  designing  of  the  Tecumseh  exedra  had 
made  plain  his  weakness  in  this  branch  of  the  sculptor's 
art.  It  was  not,  indeed,  until  he  had  begun  work,  at 
Hardy's  suggestion,  on  a  portrait-bust  of  Catherine  Klen- 
nert  that  he  stumbled  on  any  direct  and  personal  allusion 
to  Torrie's  advance. 

"  Watch  that  Throssel  woman,"  the  older  actress  with 
the  absinthe-green  eyes  had  remarked  during  one  of  her 
sittings,  quite  unconscious  that  the  quiet-eyed  artist  be 
fore  her  stood  in  any  way  personally  interested  in  the  sub 
ject.  "  You'll  notice  the  splash  in  three  or  four  weeks. 
Krassler  intends  to  throw  her  right  off  into  deep  water, 
just  to  show  that  a  Krassler  star  needn't  ever  learn  to 
swim !  " 

"Why  do  you  call  it  deep  water?"  inquired  Storrow 
as  he  went  on  with  his  work. 

"  Because  six  months  can't  make  a  show-girl  into  a 
stage  star,"  retorted  the  statuesque  beauty  who  had 
bloomed  and  faded  under  less  auspicious  planets.  And 
her  face,  as  she  spoke,  was  not  without  a  touch  of  re 
sentment.  "  It  can't  be  done,  legitimately,  even  with  a 
Krassler  behind  you.  But  in  this  case  he's  fitted  his 
woman  with  one  of  those  freak  emotional  parts  where 
delirium  tremens  makes  up  for  lack  of  technique.  And 
when  he  throws  her  onto  Broadway  she'll  probably  land 
on  her  feet,  the  same  as  a  cat.  He's  a  wizard  at  tricking 
that  stuff  over,  if  you  give  him  something  pliant  enough 
to  work  with.  It's  really  ventriloquism,  of  course,  for 
it's  always  Krassler  you  get,  every  move  and  word  and 
intonation.  It's  merely  Krassler  working  through  some 
empty-headed  woman  who's  willing  to  be  scooped  out  of 
her  own  body,  the  same  as  you  scoop  out  a  Hallow-E'en 
pumpkin  and  stick  your  own  head  inside.  But  Krassler 
isn't  in  sight  when  the  trick  is  done,  so  the  audience  sits 
back  and  accepts  the  new  star  as  the  real  thing." 

"  Well,  isn't  she  what  you'd  call  the  real  thing,"  Stor- 


342  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

row  was  prompted  to  argue,  "  so  long  as  she  gets  her  re 
sults?" 

"  But  they're  not  her  results ;  they're  Krassler's.  And 
when  the  time  comes  for  Krassler  to  step  out,  there's  noth 
ing  left  but  another  collapsed  balloon." 

"Supposing,  then,  that  Krassler  keeps  behind  her?" 
suggested  Storrow,  with  a  perfunctory  movement  or  two 
about  his  study.  For  his  mind  was  very  far  from  being 
on  his  work. 

"  That,"  retorted  the  absinthe-eyed  woman  of  the 
world,  "  all  depends  on  just  how  she's  holding  him  there." 

Nothing  more  was  said  on  the  matter,  though  the  in 
cident  left  Storrow  with  a  good  deal  to  think  over.  By 
the  time  the  Klennert  bust  was  completed  and  its  creator 
had  the  dubious  satisfaction  of  beholding  it  installed  in 
a  Fifth  Avenue  jeweller's  window,  trickily  backed  by  a 
drapery  of  dark  green  velvet,  Krassler's  production  of 
Smoke  Signals  was  duly  announced  for  Broadway. 
One  day  Storrow,  idly  watching  a  bill-poster  as  he  af 
fixed  a  "  four-sheet "  to  a  Sixth  Avenue  sign-board, 
found  a  faint  thrill  course  through  his  body  as  he  spelled 
out  the  large  and  gaudy  letters  of  "  Torrie  Throssel."  A 
week  later  he  saw  the  same  name  on  Broadway,  picked 
out  in  luminous  electric  bulbs. 

Then  came  the  play  itself.  Storrow,  after  many  si 
lent  and  self-abortive  debates,  decided  not  to  see  it.  But 
he  did  not  remain  long  in  doubt  as  to  Torrie's  success. 
The  criticism  of  the  play  itself  was  preponderantly  ad 
verse.  The  acknowledgment  of  Torrie's  personal 
triumph,  however,  was  unqualified.  As  Katherine 
Klennert  had  predicted,  the  new-made  star  had  "  landed 
on  her  feet."  And  as  the  new  play  settled  down  for 
what  promised  to  be  a  winter's  run,  and  those  friends 
of  Storrow's  who  knew  of  his  marriage  sympathetically 
sustained  their  conspiracy  of  silence  as  to  what  had  come 
to  be  regarded  as  a  mis-step  of  his  earlier  life,  the  out 
wardly  busy  man  who  was  outwardly  so  preoccupied 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  343 

with  his  projected  statue  of  Tecumseh  began  to  feel  that 
after  all  he  might  find  it  possible  to  sink  like  a  mollusk 
beneath  the  tides  of  time  and  lie  there,  enclosed  in  his 
shell,  undisturbed  by  the  forces  of  an  older  and  less 
tranquillized  world.  For  reticence,  perhaps  quite  as 
much  racial  as  it  was  personal,  was  still  a  dominating 
feature  of  his  make-up.  He  had  become,  in  fact,  almost 
morbidly  averse  to  attention,  over-sensitive  to  outside 
appraisal  and  opinion.  And  his  own  career  began  to 
impress  him  as  one  where  it  would  be  preferable  to  keep 
shut  the  cross-written  pages  of  the  past. 

But  twice  that  musty  and  much-thumbed  book  was  un 
expectedly  opened.  It  happened  the  first  time  when 
Storrow  attended  the  annual  Fakirs'  Show  of  the  Art 
Students'  League.  As  he  elbowed  his  way  through  the 
youthful  and  buoyant  and  bubbling  crowd  laughing  at 
the  freaks  of  the  improvised  "  Side-Show,"  he  came  face 
to  face  with  Alan  Vibbard,  standing  hand  in  hand  with 
an  extremely  thin  girl  in  a  short  skirt,  in  front  of  a  cage 
which  bore  the  inscription :  "  Maniac  Marmaduke,  the 
Wild  Man  of  Mazatlan."  Vibbard,  at  the  moment,  was 
laughing  at  the  demoniacal  struggles  of  the  over- whisk 
ered  Wild  Man.  Then  he  glanced  over  his  shoulder  and 
saw  Storrow  close  beside  him.  The  pendant-jowled 
painter  melted  adroitly  away  through  the  crowd,  during 
the  next  minute  or  two,  but  that  unlooked-for  encounter 
served  to  take  the  effervescing  spirit  of  youth  and  gaiety 
out  of  the  children  of  art  pirouetting  about  a  sombre- 
eyed  young  man  with  a  prematurely  shadowed  face. 

The  second  unheralded  return  to  the  past  occurred  late 
one  afternoon  when  the  light  in  Storrow's  studio  had 
become  too  uncertain  for  further  work.  A  knock,  so 
light  as  to  seem  almost  timorous,  had  sounded  on  his 
door.  Before  he  could  answer  it  the  door  itself  had 
opened  and  Torrie  herself  had  stepped  into  the  room. 
She  was  veiled,  and  muffled  in  heavy  black  furs,  but  he 
recognized  her  at  once,  even  before  she  spoke. 


344  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  May  I  come  in,  Owen  ?  "  she  asked,  almost  timidly. 
Her  voice,  for  all  its  'momentary  quaver,  struck  him  as 
deeper  and  fuller  in  tone.  Through  the  folds  of  the 
veil  her  face  looked  thinner  and  whiter  than  before. 

He  placed  a  chair  for  her,  but  she  remained  standing, 
staring  slowly  about  the  room  with  its  blurring  lines 
receding  into  unbroken  shadow.  She  even  stopped  him, 
with  a  little  gesture,  which  seemed  quite  new  to  her,  as 
he  moved  to  switch  on  the  lights. 

"  I  can  stay  only  a  moment,"  she  murmured,  with 
what  seemed  an  almost  apprehensive  glance  back  towards 
the  still  open  door.  Of  the  two,  he  was  much  the  more 
self-possessed. 

"  It  was  kind  of  you  to  come,"  he  said,  disturbed  that 
he  was  unable  to  make  his  tone  anything  more  than  per 
functory. 

"  I  was  wondering,"  she  hesitatingly  began,  after  the 
silence  had  lengthened  abysmally  between  them,  "  if 
you'd  have  the  time,  later  on,  to  do  a  —  a  bust  of  me, 
something  like  the  Klennert  bust." 

It  was  impossible,  he  found,  to  keep  from  probing  for 
some  motive  behind  this  suggestion.  But  the  motive,  if 
there  was  one,  eluded  him. 

"  That  was  a  terribly  bad  bust,"  he  averred,  almost 
lightly,  wondering  just  how  he  should  phrase  his  refusal 
of  her  suggestion. 

"No,  no;  I've  heard  only  nice  things  about  it,"  she 
protested,  trying  to  counter  a  depressing  consciousness 
of  formality  by  a  smile  which  was  at  first  hesitating  and 
then  pitiful.  "  But  perhaps  you're  busy  with  other 
work." 

"  I've  got  old  Tecumseh  to  work  out,  if  I  can  ever  get 
a  model  who's  lean  and  sinewy  enough  for  what  I  need." 

"  Oh,  yes ;  Tecumseh,"  she  echoed,  her  mind  obviously 
not  on  what  she  said.  She  turned  away,  and  her  hand 
went  up  to  her  veil.  Through  that  veil  he  seemed  to 
read  on  her  face  an  odd  mingling  of  perplexity  and  dis- 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  345 

appointment.  He  himself  was  perplexed  by  some  new 
born  shyness  about  her,  an  air  of  timorousness  which  he 
found  hard  to  reconcile  with  his  earlier  memories  of  Tor- 
rie.  Without  knowing  why,  as  he  watched  her,  he 
thought  of  a  bird  with  a  broken  wing.  Her  pale  face 
coloured  a  little  as  she  became  conscious  of  his  studious 
eyes  upon  her. 

"  Are  you  sorry  I  came?  "  she  asked,  speaking  with  an 
effort. 

"  Yes,"  he  was  compelled  in  honour  to  admit.  "  I'm 
sorry." 

She  nodded  her  head,  as  though  in  belated  conscious 
ness  of  some  infinite  and  forgotten  remoteness  between 
them.  Then  she  turned  away.  Her  husband  watched 
her  as  she  moved  slowly  towards  the  door. 

"  Must  you  go  ?  "  he  mechanically  inquired. 

Torrie,  still  without  looking  back  at  him,  nodded  her 
head.  Her  steps,  as  she  walked  towards  the  door,  were 
slow,  like  the  steps  of  a  person  wading  through  water. 
But  she  passed  out  into  the  dim-lit  and  many-odoured 
hallway  without  stopping  or  looking  back.  Storrow, 
after  staring  a  moment  at  the  still  open  door,  crossed  to 
the  wall-switch  and  lighted  the  studio. 

The  room,  with  its  shadowy  recesses  that  had  seemed 
haunted  by  a  huddle  of  thin  shapes  and  memories,  be 
came  at  a  hand's  turn  a  place  of  flat  walls  and  uncom 
promisingly  hard  lines.  His  eyes  wandered  on  to  the 
clay-stained  frame- work  to  which  so  much  of  that  day 
had  gone  in  toil.  It  suddenly  impressed  him  as  tragically 
inconsequential  and  foolish,  this  refashioning  of  dead 
Indians  out  of  mud.  It  was  not  manly  work.  It  was 
not  even  engrossing,  though  he  had  stood  too  cowardly 
ever  to  admit  that  over-disquieting  truth  to  his  own  soul. 
But  it  helped  to  fill  in  the  emptiness  of  life.  It  seemed 
about  all  that  was  left  to  him.  He  would  go  on  at  that 
sort  of  thing,  he  supposed,  keeping  up  an  appearance  of 
contentment,  buttressing  up  his  make-believe  of  accom- 


346  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

plishment,  until  the  unrest  in  his  soul  burned  itself  out, 
like  a  lamp.  For,  some  day,  he  contended,  the  oil  that 
fed  this  flame  must  exhaust  itself. 

Storrow  was  still  standing  there,  deep  in  thought,  when 
he  was  aroused  by  the  sound  of  quick  and  nervous  foot 
steps  crossing  his  floor-boards.  He  swung  about  to  find 
himself  confronted  by  Herman  Krassler  in  a  fur-lined 
Melton  overcoat  which  merely  seemed  to  add  to  his  dim- 
inutiveness. 

"  Is  Torrie  here?  ''  that  unannounced  intruder  promptly 
inquired. 

"  She  is  not,"  Storrow  just  as  promptly  retorted. 

"  Has  she  been  here?  " 

"Why?" 

This  man,  Storrow  remembered,  was  his  enemy,  his 
one  remaining  enemy.  In  that  thin  and  nervously  strung 
body  with  its  rat-like  audacity  merging  on  insolence  he 
could  behold  personified  those  more  sordid  and  selfish 
forces  which  were  walling  his  wife  off  in  a  world  of  her 
own.  Always,  to  Storrow,  he  had  remained  a  sinister 
back-ground  figure,  awaiting  the  chance  which  he  had 
known  would  some  day  be  his.  And  now,  in  a  way,  he 
had  triumphed.  His  patience  had  been  rewarded. 

"  Because  it's  rather  important,"  was  Krassler's  an 
swer  to  the  other's  interrogative  rebuff. 

"To  whom?"  demanded  Storrow,  as  he  remembered 
the  futile  physical  violence  with  which  he  had  met  other 
enemies,  enemies  strangely  different  to  this  small  and 
rat-like  body  with  the  extraordinary  light  in  its  deep-set 
eyes.  And  much  as  he  longed  to  clear  the  air  with  some 
purging  and  relieving  outburst  of  passion,  Storrow  found 
it  impossible  to  wring  any  consolation  from  the  thought 
of  physical  assault  on  anything  so  defenceless. 
'  To  all  of  us,"  retorted  Krassler. 

"  What  do  you  want,  anyway?  "  challenged  the  other, 
a  little  out  of  control,  conscious,  even  in  his  anger,  that 
it  was  the  smaller  man's  power  and  the  fortitude  born 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  347 

of  this  power  which  was  inflaming  him  to  opposition. 

"  I  want  to  talk  about  Torrie,"  he  said  with  a  second 
quiet  yet  quickly  appraising  stare  at  the  other  man. 

"  I  hope  it  will  be  a  brief  talk,"  retorted  Storrow. 

"  That  all  depends  on  you,"  announced  Krassler,  still 
cool  in  the  face  of  the  younger  man's  hostility. 

"  Then  we  can  regard  it  as  ended,  right  now,"  was 
Storrow's  prompt  ultimatum. 

"  That  would  be  welcome  enough  to  me,  but  unfort 
unately  it  doesn't  bring  us  to  any  solution  of  our  prob 
lem." 

"  I  wasn't  aware  that  we  had  one  in  common." 

"  But  we  have." 

"What  is  it?" 

"  Torrie." 

It  was  Storrow's  turn  to  renew  his  appraisal  of  the 
man  confronting  him.  In  that  alert  and  finely  wrinkled 
face  with  the  quick  glance  which  contradicted  the  look 
of  weariness  about  the  femininely  soft  eyes  he  detected 
a  courage  and  directness  which  he  was  reluctantly  com 
pelled  to  respect.  Krassler,  he  knew,  had  the  singleness 
of  will  which  spelt  success,  which  carried  him  over  every 
obstacle  to  the  end  in  view.  And  the  man  who  saw  his 
far-off  goal  and  struggled  towards  it,  without  digression 
or  diversion,  was  always  to  be  envied. 

"And  what  is  your  interest  in  Torrie?"  Storrow  de 
manded. 

"  I  am  her  manager,"  retorted  Krassler. 

"  Well,  I  am  her  husband,"  just  as  crisply  retorted  the 
other. 

"  Nominally,  but  not  actually,"  corrected  Krassler. 

"  Is  that  your  problem?  " 

Krassler  did  not  wince,  but  it  took  him  a  moment  or 
two  to  organize  his  answer  to  that  over-curt  question. 

"  Torrie  is  my  star.  I've  landed  her  on  Broadway 
with  a  success.  If  she's  handled  right  she  can  repeat  that 
success  season  by  season,  as  long  as  she  wants  to  call 


348  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

herself  an  actress.  That  means  her  name  and  personal 
ity  have  taken  on  a  definite  commercial  value." 

"  I  know  all  that." 

"  Then  you  also  know  that  any  personal  entanglement, 
anything  that  stands  unsavoury  and  sordid  to  her  public, 
is  going  to  effect  her  name  and  her  future." 

"  Do  you  regard  marriage  as  an  entanglement?  " 

"  In  this  case,  I  do,"  was  Krassler's  prompt  reply. 

"  Then  what  do  you  propose  ?  " 

"  I  suggest  that  you  give  Torrie  a  divorce." 

Still  again  Storrow  studied  the  slight  and  nervous- 
bodied  man  in  front  of  him.  And  still  again  he  yielded 
reluctant  tribute  to  his  enemy's  audacity. 

"  And  what  good  would  that  do  either  Torrie  or  me  ?  " 
he  demanded,  slightly  amazed  at  the  coolness  with  which 
he  could  discuss  a  problem  once  painful  and  still  emin 
ently  personal. 

"  It  would  leave  Torrie  unhampered,  to  go  on  with  her 
work." 

"  I  can't  see  that  being  married  has  hampered  her  any 
in  her  work."  He  remembered,  at  the  moment,  what 
Chester  Hardy  had  once  said  about  marriage:  that  it 
naturally  closed  a  number  of  doors,  but  that  divorce 
closed  and  locked  a  much  greater  number. 

"  Your  failure  to  realize  a  situation  doesn't  correct 
it,"  Krassler  was  saying.  "  I  repeat  that  that  situation 
exists.  And  as  Torrie  comes  to  stand  more  and  more 
prominently  before  the  public  the  more  that  situation  will 
become  a  drag  on  her." 

11  You  mean  that  /  am  the  drag!  " 

"  I  prefer  not  expressing  it  in  that  particular  man 
ner,"  Krassler  explained  with  a  coolness  that  was  not 
without  its  barb. 

"  But  that's  about  what  you  mean?  " 

"  That  depends  very  much  on  the  course  of  action 
which  you  propose  to  follow!  " 

"  But  I  propose  to  follow  no  course  of  action,"  was 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  349 

Storrow's  prompt  announcement.  Krassler  shook  his 
head,  almost  impatiently. 

"  That,  under  the  circumstances,  is  not  quite  possible. 
You've  either  got  to  approve  of  such  a  move,  or  oppose 
it." 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  decline  even  to  bring  it  into  ex 
istence." 

"  That  is  equally  impossible." 

"What  makes  it  impossible?" 

"  The  fact  that  your  wife  is  already  in  possession  of 
sufficient  evidence  to  obtain  the  end  I've  spoken  of." 

"  Do  you  mean  evidence  against  me  ?  " 

"Yes!" 

"  What  kind  of  evidence?  " 

"  I  understand  that  you  were  detected  by  the  necessary 
witness  in  a  situation  necessarily  compromising,  a  lit 
tle  over  a  year  ago,  in  " — 

"  Evidence  against  me?  "  repeated  the  astonished  Stor- 
row. 

"  In  the  room,"  pursued  Krassler  with  a  carefully 
maintained  matter-of-factness,  "  of  a  Broadway  chorus- 
girl  known  as  Pannie  Atwill." 

Storrow's  thoughts  flew  back  to  the  situation  which 
Krassler's  words  had  so  suddenly  recalled.  He  remem 
bered  the  scene  and  Mattie  Crowder's  calm-eyed  inspec 
tion  of  it. 

"  But  that  situation  was  an  innocent  one,  absolutely 
and  entirely  innocent,"  he  explained,  nettled  to  find  him 
self  on  the  defensive. 

"  It  would  not  be  accepted  as  innocent  by  any  open- 
minded  judge  of  the  supreme  court,"  was  Krassler's  im 
personal  retort.  It  took  an  effort,  on  Storrow's  part,  to 
keep  himself  under  control. 

"  Has  Torrie  ever  expressed  a  willingness  to  make  use 
of  that  incident?"  he  demanded. 

"  She  may  be  compelled  to,"  was  Krassler's  non-com 
mittal  retort. 


350  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"But  is  she  willing  to?" 

"  She  realizes  that  things  can't  possibly  go  on  as  they 
are,"  was  the  other's  answer. 

"  And  you  intend  to  use  this,"  began  Storrow. 

"  I  don't  think  you  will  be  stupid  enough  to  make  that 
necessary,"  Krassler  told  him.  But  Storrow,  the  next 
moment,  had  swung  about  on  him. 

"  It  isn't  a  matter  of  stupidity.  It's  a  matter  of  de 
cency.  And,  if  I'm  not  mistaken,  the  stupidity  is  on 
your  side.  No  matter  what  happened  in  connection  with 
this  Pannie  Atwill  affair  you've,  mentioned,  Torrie  knew 
of  that  affair  at  the  time,  was  a  witness  to  it,  and  openly 
condoned  it  by  living  with  me  for  nearly  a  year.  And  as 
I  remember  it  the  condoning  of  any  such  offence  exempts 
it  from  action  for  divorce." 

Krassler,  still  shrewd-eyed  and  thoughtful,  shrugged  a 
diffident  shoulder. 

"I'm  neither  a  judge  nor  a  lawyer.  But  if  what  you 
say  is  true  it  remains  equally  true  that  if  Torrie  wants 
to  sacrifice  a  half-year  out  of  her  work  she  can  go  to 
Nevada  and  obtain  her  decree  there  on  the  grounds  of 
cruelty  and  non-support.  But  that's  something  which 
you  both  ought  to  fight  shy  of." 

Storrow  met  the  other  man's  eye,  still  marked  by  an 
absence  of  open  combativeness. 

"  Why  are  you  so  interested  in  all  this  ?  "  he  suddenly 
demanded. 

"  Because,  as  I've  already  pointed  out,  I  happen  to  be 
Torrie  Throssel's  manager.  And  I  want  to  see  her  free 
to  win  over  the  public  that  she's  waiting  to  win  over." 

Storrow's  gesture  was  one  of  impatience.  Then  a  new 
thought  came  to  him. 

"  Does  Torrie  intend  to  marry  another  man?  "  he  de 
manded. 

"  I've  never  heard  her  express  such  an  intention,"  was 
Krassler's  cool-noted  reply. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  351 

"Do  you  intend  to  marry  her?"  asked  Storrow,  in 
specting  his  small-bodied  enemy. 

Krassler  laughed. 

"  Thanking  you,  I  have  quite  troubles  enough  as  her 
manager,"  he  said. 

"  But  you  do  intend  to  see  that  she  secures  a  divorce  ?  " 
demanded  Storrow,  once  more  amazed  at  the  coolness 
with  which  he  could  fence  over  a  theme  so  intimate  and 
at  the  same  time  so  odious. 

"  Since  you've  put  it  that  way,"  was  the  quiet  re 
sponse,  "  I  do  intend  seeing  that  she  gets  a  divorce." 

"  And  you  came  here  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  my 
co-operation  in  an  action  which,  under  the  circumstances, 
must  be  a  collusary  one?  " 

"  Not  necessarily.  I  came  here  more  to  find  out  what 
your  attitude  was.  Whether  you  oppose  any  such  ac 
tion,  or  whether  you  agree  to  it,  hasn't  very  much  bear 
ing  on  the  case.  In  either  event,  you  see,  it  will  go  on 
exactly  the  same." 

"  Who  says  so?  " 

"  I  say  so." 

"  Then  what  I  happen  to  say  couldn't  be  of  much  con 
sequence?  " 

"  Not  unless  you're  big  enough  to  feel  the  appropri 
ateness  of  making  things  as  easy  as  possible  for  Torrie," 
was  Krassler's  slowly  enunciated  reply. 

"  Aren't  you  proving  yourself  sufficiently  expert  at 
that  ?  "  was  Storrow's  equally  deliberate  demand.  But 
that  taunt  altogether  failed  to  bring  any  answering  taunt 
from  the  man  whom  he  had  regarded  so  long  as  his 
enemy.  Storrow,  indeed,  was  surprised  to  see  a  look  of 
pathos  in  the  deep-set  Hebraic  eyes  of  the  face  confront 
ing  him.  Yet  it  was  a  look  that  came  and  went  again  in 
a  moment's  time. 

"  Whatever  I'm  doing,"  retorted  Krassler  with  his  first 
parade  of  open  anger,  "  isn't  being  done  for  my  own 


352  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

selfish  satisfaction.  I'm  not  thinking  about  myself.  I'm 
not  posing  as  a  martyr.  And  what's  more,  I'm  not  try 
ing  to  straddle  two  horses  at  once.  I'm  thinking  of  a 
woman's  future,  the  future  she's  got  to  fight  for.  What's 
more,  I'm  banking  everything  I've  got  on  that  future. 
I'm  banking  more  than  money  on  it  —  and  I'm  not  worry 
ing  about  what  I'm  going  to  win  or  lose.  But  if  you 
haven't  manhood  enough  to  leave  this  girl  free  to  put 
up  the  fight  she's  got  to  put  up,  then  I'm  glad  to  find  out 
how  we  stand,  so  that  I  can  act  accordingly." 

Storrow's  first  impression,  at  this  almost  theatrical  out 
burst,  was  a  suspicion  of  being  manipulated  by  an  adroit 
and  accomplished  juggler  in  emotional  values,  a  feeling 
that  he  was  being  goaded  into  an  opposition  which  must 
later  on  serve  to  extenuate  unsavoury  extremes.  But 
as  the  force  of  what  his  diminutive  enemy  had  said  came 
fully  home  to  him  this  initial  suspicion  was  submerged 
by  an  answering  wave  of  anger,  quick  and  uncontrolled. 

"  Well,  I'll  tell  you  what  I  have  manhood  enough  for," 
he  cried  out,  unconscious  of  the  picture  of  a  patient-eyed 
little  man  with  a  soul  of  fire  and  a  swarthy  and  shrunken 
face  as  haggard  as  a  lost  and  hungry  dog's  in  front  of 
him.  "  I've  manhood  enough  not  to  see  my  name 
dragged  through  the  mire  by  a  bunch  of  theatrical  para 
sites  and  an  exploiter  of  women  like  you.  The  divorce 
court  may  be  a  joke  in  your  circle,  but  it's  not  in  mine. 
And  since  you've  had  the  effrontery  to  announce  that 
you're  going  to  put  me  through  it  about  the  same  as 
you'd  put  a  clown  through  a  paper  hoop,  I'm  going  to 
announce  to  you  right  here  and  now  that  I  intend  to  fight 
you,  tooth  and  nail!  I'll  fight  you  —  and  I'll  fight  you 
to  the  last  ditch !" 


CHAPTER   TWENTY-NINE 

IF  Storrow  wrung  any  satisfaction  out  of  his  open 
declaration  of  opposition  to  Krassler,  that  satisfac 
tion  was  not  an  enduring  one.  He  realized,  as  he 
thought  things  over,  that  his  words  had  been  big  and 
that  his  ability  to  translate  them  into  action  was  limited. 
And  as  Krassler  himself,  apparently  sharing  in  that  re 
alization,  withdrew  with  the  promptness  of  a  lawyer's 
clerk  who  has  served  his  subpoena,  Storrow  was  not  with 
out  the  disturbing  consciousness  of  beholding  what  had 
seemed  a  highly  dramatic  situation  wither  away  into 
nothingness. 

Yet  there  were  other  things  which  disturbed  him  even 
more.  One  of  these  was  the  discovery  that  Pannie  At- 
will  might  still  again  appear  in  the  drama  of  his  life,  a 
painted  Columbine  with  the  dignifying  attributes  of  a 
Greek  Chorus.  It  seemed,  on  the  whole,  expedient  that 
he  should  see  Pannie.  So  without  further  loss  of  time 
he  began  making  inquiries  and  soon  found  that  she  was 
holding  forth  in  a  musical-comedy  entitled  The  Princess 
of  Pecos,  recognized  as  one  of  the  Broadway  successes 
of  the  season. 

Storrow,  when  he  applied  at  the  stage-entrance  of  her 
theatre,  found  Pannie  too  preoccupied  with  costume  and 
make-up  to  waste  valuable  time  in  talk. 

"  Say,  it'd  be  like  sleepin'  in  a  nest  o'  copperheads, 
tryin'  to  talk  private  in  this  bunch  o'  bone-heads,"  Pannie 
promptly  informed  him.  "  Come  round  after  the  show 
and  steer  me  over  to  Barney's,  where  we  can  sit  in  com 
fort.  And  if  you've  gotta  kill  time,  why  don't  you  get  a 
look  in  at  this  piece?  Skip  round  front  and  grab  a  seat 

353 


354  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

while  you  can,  for  it's  a  riot,  all  right.  And  keep  your 
eye  peeled  for  that  colour-scheme  o'  mine  at  the  end  of 
the  second  act,  for  the  ribs  round  here  have  been  knockin' 
my  lonjery-tints  and  I  want  the  word  of  a  gink  who's 
tried  and  true !  " 

Storrow,  at  the  box-office  of  The  Princess  of  Pecos, 
had  the  good  luck  to  obtain  a  solitary  "  turn-in."  He 
sat  through  the  play  patiently  and  a  little  bewildered, 
puzzled  by  the  manner  in  which  the  audience  about  him 
responded  to  that  stridulous  and  over-driven  entertain 
ment.  It  was  not  a  cheap  audience.  If  anything,  it  was 
an  over-decorous  one.  It  impressed  Storrow  as  being 
typically  American  in  its  amiability  and  personal  kindli 
ness,  in  its  ability  to  react  promptly  and  whole-heartedly 
to  the  stimuli  of  the  present,  in  its  keen  and  amazingly 
simple  powers  of  vision,  in  its  preoccupied  forbearance 
of  shallowness  and  shoddiness,  and  in  that  general  drowsy 
insomnia  of  the  soul,  half-awake,  half-asleep,  with  which 
the  over-tensioned  citizen  of  an  over-tensioned  city  sur 
renders  to  his  amusements.  The  play  itself  was  estab 
lished  on  old  and  well-approved  lines,  its  one  novelty,  as 
far  as  Storrow  could  see,  being  its  unduly  accelerated 
tempo,  where  scene  and  song  and  movement  s\vept  on, 
before  the  startled  eye  could  adjust  itself  to  the  perspec 
tives  of  criticism.  He  was  out  of  tune  with  its  spirit 
and  intent,  so  that  instead  of  amusing  him  it  merely  be 
numbed  him.  He  was  glad  enough  when  it  was  over. 

Yet  he  had  to  wait  longer  than  he  had  expected  beside 
that  dimly  lighted  stage-entrance  which  impressed  him  as 
ridiculously  dingy  and  sordid  in  comparison  with  the  same 
theatre's  incandescent  foyer  grandeurs.  Stamped  by  the 
same  ironic  dinginess,  he  noticed,  were  the  chorus-girls 
who  began  to  emerge  from  that  door,  hurrying  and  pre 
occupied  girls  with  tired  faces  and  militantly  unseeing 
eyes,  with  the  odour  of  cosmetics  still  about  them.  Stage 
singers  and  dancers  drifted  past  him,  all  the  sparkle  and 
daintiness  and  devil-may-careness  quite  gone  from  them, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  355 

for  now  they  were  serious-minded  working  people  with 
the  serious  enough  business  of  the  day  completed.  They 
were  merely  toilers  in  the  fields  of  gladness,  sombrely  in 
tent  on  their  escape  from  that  frugal  harvesting  of  laugh 
ter  and  dolorously  in  need  of  a  meal  and  a  pillow  under 
their  heads. 

In  the  later  and  more  leizurely  stragglers  from  the 
stage  door,  it  is  true,  Storrow  found  an  increasing  gaiety 
of  apparel  and  intent,  since  these  queenlier  idlers  were 
the  pink  slaves  of  that  once  dominating  tradition  which 
held  that  "the  show  girl  " — as  she  was  at  that  time  de 
nominated  —  always  "  brought  money  into  the  house," 
and  the  more  conspicuous  she  stood  in  the  night-life  of 
Broadway  the  more  valuable  she  could  hold  herself  to  the 
management  which  made  a  pretence  of  controlling  her 
movements.  It  was  one  of  these  queenlier  personages 
who  was  bunted  unceremoniously  aside  as  Pannie  Atwill 
dodged  out  through  the  door. 

"  Pawdon  me!  "  she  said  with  mock  deference  as  she 
hopped  forward  and  slipped  an  arm  through  Storrow's. 
She  was  busy  buttoning  up  her  coat  and  tugging  on  her 
gloves  as  they  emerged  from  the  dark  alleyway  into  the 
side-street. 

"  I  guess  you're  sore,  after  pawin'  the  asphelt  this 
long,"  she  said  by  way  of  explanation.  "  But  I  had  me 
laundry  to  get  ready  and  a  she-hokum  in  there  was  tryin' 
to  crab  my  Wendies.  So  let's  beat  it  to  Barney's  before 
the  fairy-rings  get  swamped  in  Bock!  " 

Once  duly  installed  at  Barney's,  at  a  table  as  secluded 
as  could  be  found  in  that  night-blooming  Sirius  of  a 
Rathskeller,  Pannie  gave  her  undivided  attention  to  a 
Golden  Buck  Rabbit  and  a  thrice-filled  stein  of  Pilsner. 
Then,  with  an  honest  appetite  honestly  appeased,  she  be 
came  disposed  to  entertain  any  more  abstract  problem 
which  might  be  presented  to  her.  Storrow  noticed,  as 
he  explained  Krassler's  visit  to  him,  that  Pannie  had 
taken  pains  to  remove  the  heavy  make-up  which  had  dis- 


356  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

figured  her  face  as  he  had  seen  it  earlier  in  the  evening. 
He  was  glad  of  this,  for  that  face  as  he  had  first  beheld  it, 
with  its  great  blotches  of  carmine  spread  along  either 
cheek-bone,  its  geranium-painted  lips  and  beaded  lashes 
and  azured  eye-lids,  had  impressed  him  as  a  face  disturb 
ingly  clown-like  to  be  called  into  conference  over  a  prob 
lem  very  far  removed  from  jocularity.  Even  now,  with 
its  fatigued  eyes  and  its  evidences  of  having  been  well 
scrubbed  with  cold-cream,  it  seemed  incongruously  pert 
and  frivolous  for  insinuating  into  the  solemnest  intimacies 
of  his  life.  But  Pannie's  face  was  dignified  enough  as 
the  man  across  the  table  explained  to  her  the  intent  and 
purport  of  Krassler's  ultimatum. 

"  Poor  little  kyke !  "  she  said  with  ruminative  eyes, 
when  Storrow  had  finished. 

"  Then  you're  with  Krassler  in  this?  "  demanded  Stor 
row,  astonished  by  that  unlocked  for  expression  of 
sympathy  with  his  enemy. 

"  Now,  Buddy,  don't  get  your  war-bonnet  on,''  Pannie 
warned  him.  "  I  didn't  say  I  was  for  Krassler.  The 
only  person  I'm  for,  in  this,  is  Torrie.  And  I'm  for  her 
strong.  But  I  do  say  I'm  sorry  for  the  kyke,  the  same 
as  I'd  be  sorry  for  any  gink  who's  only  gettin'  somebody 
else's  empty  oyster-shell !  He's  only  gettin'  an  oyster- 
shell,  but  Krassler's  puttin'  one  over  on  all  of  us  by  takin' 
that  shell  and  carvin'  it  into  a  Baralong  pearl." 

"  I  don't  quite  understand  what  you  mean  by  that," 
Storrow  was  compelled  to  admit. 

"  Then  I'll  wise  you  up,"  rejoined  Pannie.  "  That 
little  guy's  a  genius,  at  his  own  special  line  o'  work.  All 
he  wants  is  a  woman  with  a  voice  and  a  face  that  won't 
warp  the  plush  off  the  balcony-rail.  He  can  take  her 
and  work  with  her  and  breathe  the  breath  o'  life  into 
her,  the  same  as  that  old  Greek  boob  did  with  his  Galatea 
dame  with  the  stony  midriff.  That's  what  he's  doin' 
with  Torrie,  or  with  all  that's  left  of  Torrie.  For  you 
can't  side-step  the  fact,  Capt'n  Kidd,  that  it  was  you  who 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  357 

scooped  out  the  oyster  of  Torrie's  life.  I  guess  you  got 
about  all  she  had  to  give.  Perhaps  it  didn't  altogether 
agree  with  your  Little  Mary,  bein'  more  used  to  the  frigid 
eats  of  the  native  Esquimau.  But  that  ain't  exactly  the 
problem  we're  here  to  beef  about.  What  we're  limekiln- 
clubbin'  over  is  Krassler.  And  as  I  lamp  the  whole 
thing,  by  and  large,  Krassler's  the  only  man  who  can 
keep  Torrie  inside  the  track-rail.  For  the  only  way  that 
girl's  goin'  to  be  happy  now  is  in  her  work.  That's  all 
that  can  keep  her  goin'.  And  it  ain't  so  much,  remember, 
when  there's  nothin'  behind  it.  But  it's  better  than  sub- 
sidin'  on  the  toboggan  and  hittin'  the  grade  where  the 
down-and-outers  hand  the  roundsman  a  weekly  rake-off 
for  gettin'  colour-blind  when  the  green-lights  pass  on  the 
wink  to  the  red.  That's  something  you've  gotta  face, 
whether  it  hurts  the  enamel  or  not.  Torrie's  got  her 
good  points.  And  she's  also  got  her  weak  ones.  And 
one  o'  them  is  this,"  continued  Pannie,  with  a  clink  of 
her  metal-ringed  ringer  against  the  glass  beside  her. 
"  With  Krassler  she'll  keep  away  from  that,  because  she's 
gotta  keep  away  from  it.  She's  just  an  engine,  to  Kras 
sler.  And  he  won't  stand  for  any  loose-jointed  work  in 
that  engine.  He'll  want  her  to  run  like  a  Rolls-Royce  — 
and  what's  more,  he'll  make  her.  He  knows  you  can't 
star  with  a  burned-up  larnyx,  any  more'n  you  can  nurse 
a  hang-over  and  emote  your  way  through  that  heavy 
stuff.  He  can  put  hobbles  and  blinders  on  her  and  hold 
her  through  her  work.  But  he's  gotta  hold  her  still 
closer'n  that.  He's  gotta  know  he's  in  control,  and  she's 
gotta  know  he's  in  control.  And  the  only  way  he  can 
do  that,  as  I  dope  it  out,  is  to  be  something  more  than  her 
manager!  " 

Storrow's  questioning  eyes  stared  into  the  audacious 
and  slightly  combative  eyes  of  the  pert- faced  girl  con 
fronting  him. 

'  You  —  you  don't  mean  that  he's  got  to  marry  her?  " 
asked  the  man  with  the  slowly  hardening  face. 


358  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  That,  Capt'n  Kidd,  is  exactly  what  I  mean.  He's 
gotta  marry  her.  He's  gotta  put  the  neck-yoke  under 
her  tossin'  mane  and  be  able  to  say  which  turn  comes 
next." 

"  But  he  doesn't  even  intend  a  move  like  that,''  cried 
the  unhappy  and  altogether  bewildered  Storrow.  Pan- 
nie's  lip  curled  with  a  scorn  which,  for  all  its  quickness, 
still  held  a  touch  of  kindliness. 

'  You  poor  muddle-lamped  mutt  you,  can't  you  see 
that  Krasslers  been  crazy  about  that  girl  from  the  first 
crack  out  o'  the  box  ?  Can't  you  see  how  he's  stood  off  to 
one  side  and  waited  for  her  about  the  same  as  a  last 
year's  bird's  nest  waits  for  the  lady-wren  to  hop  back  into 
the  neighbourhood  ?  He's  let  her  try  out  her  wings,  and 
fight  the  wind,  and  lose  a  feather  or  two,  and  even  come 
down  in  a  nose-dive  with  all  the  song  knocked  out  of  her. 
But  he's  always  been  there,  waitin',  just  waitin'.  With 
you,  kiddo,  it's  different.  You  had  a  run  for  your 
money.  And  you're  one  o'  those  clean-mapped  Bmm- 
mels  that  the  unthinkin'  female  of  the  species  seems  to 
have  a  weakness  for,  mistakin'  your  quietness  for  cold 
ness  and  dreamin'  it  would  be  some  jinks  to  thaw  you 
out.  I  ain't  so  sure  that  I  wouldn't  like  to  show  you  what 
a  grand  little  thawer  I  am  myself,  if  I  could  only  get  you 
woke  up  once.  No,  son,  don't  send  for  the  reserves. 
You're  still  safe.  I  ain't  she-vampin'  any  Canucks  these 
days  without  a  little  encouragement  —  and  you've  never 
even  given  me  a  pinch-hitter's  openin'.  But  in  spite  of 
all  that,  Capt'n  Kidd,  I  ain't  against  you.  I'm  for  you, 
strong.  But  I'm  just  a  little  stronger  for  Torrie.  And 
if  she's  got  a  chanct  to  make  harbour,  I'm  goin'  to  be  the 
busy  little  buntin'  tug  to  help  warp  her  in.  If  I've  gotta, 
I'm  goin'  to  testify  to  every  eagle-eyed  beak  on  the  bench 
that  you  was  fond  and  foolish,  that  night  when  the  only 
longin'  you  had  was  a  longin'  for  ice-water  and  solitood. 
It'll  sure  nail  me  down  as  a  charter  member  of  the  An 
anias  Club,  but  I've  got  the  gumption  to  see  it  through 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  359 

because  I've  got  the  hunch  it's  the  only  way  that's  left 
to  straighten  out  Torrie's  life.  And  now  I  want  another 
pint  o'  Pilsner,  for  I've  talked  until  I've  got  a  throat  like 
a  limekiln !  " 

Storrow  sat  staring  at  the  pert-eyed  child  of  the  chorus 
who  had  gone  pirouetting  through  his  close-shuttered 
house  of  life,  amazed  at  her  audacity,  yet  even  more 
amazed  at  what  that  audacity  had  revealed  to  him.  It 
would  take  time,  he  knew,  to  reassemble  and  reorganize 
what  had  been  thrown  into  such  sudden  riot. 

"  And  there's  another  point  I  want  'o  put  into  your 
ear,"  continued  the  cool-eyed  Pannie.  "  Torrie's  too  new 
at  this  stage  game,  of  course,  to  take  a  tumble  to  when 
the  old-handers  behind  her  are  crabbin'  her  points.  And 
stage-work,  when  you  once  get  to  know  it,  is  sure  war  to 
the  knife.  Torrie,  you  see,  is  still  so  busy  puttin'  over 
her  part  she  can't  keep  an  eye  peeled  for  the  wolfers  she 
has  to  work  with.  But  just  let  little  Hermie  spot  one  o' 
those  old-timers  tryin'  to  shoulder  off  into  the  backdrop, 
or  wiggle  so  much  as  a  finger  on  one  of  his  star's  big 
lines,  or  cut  a  laugh  short  or  cross  in  on  a  scene  arid 
flatten  the  punch  out  of  her  picture  —  just  let  the  eagle- 
eyed  Hermie  lamp  any  o'  those  dodges  and  see  him  come 
down  on  'em  like  a  ton  o'  bricks.  Does  he  watch  her? 
Say,  he  watches  that  woman  the  same  as  a  she-tiger 
watches  her  offspring!  " 

But  Storrow  was  not  interested  in  the  tricks  of  drama 
tic  rivalry.  He  was  more  interested  in  the  suddenly 
snarled-up  drama  of  his  own  existence. 

"  Then  it's  all  settled  on  and  decided,"  he  asked  as 
Pannie  put  down  her  glass,  "  that  I'm  to  be  the  victim  of 
a  collusive  divorce,  whether  I  want  it  or  not,  whether  I 
approve  or  disapprove  of  entering  into  conspiracies?" 

Pannie  nodded  her  head. 

"  Yes ;  you're  it,"  she  calmly  acknowledged.  "  You're 
the  beetle  on  the  big  pin.  And  wrigglin'  won't  do  any 
thing  more'n  give  you  an  extra  pain  in  your  little  in- 


360  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

nards.  But  since  you  mention  it,  son,  why're  you  so  set 
against  givin'  Torrie  her  freedom  ?  " 

"  I'll  answer  that  question  by  asking  another,"  was 
Storrow's  retort.  "  Can  any  such  action  as  that  be  taken 
in  a  city  like  this  without  having  the  whole  sordid  mess 
dragged  through  the  newspapers?  Can  a  woman  who's 
become  a  Broadway  star  obtain  a  divorce  without  having 
every  detail  of  it  bandied  about?  " 

"  No,  Cap'n  Kidd,  you  can't.  You  can't  cook  up  a 
case  like  this  and  then  primp  up  your  kisser  and  say  you 
want  the  papers  sealed.  All  you  can  do  is  put  the  soft 
pedal  on  by  havin'  the  case  unopposed.  And  even  then 
they'll  sure  get  it  into  big  type,  for  the  stars  is  what  the 
rubes  want  'o  sit  up  nights  readin'  about.  It'll  be  ban 
died,  all  right." 

The  stricken  look  that  crept  into  his  eyes  at  the  same 
time  that  a  deeper  colour  swept  up  over  his  face  did  not 
escape  her.  She  studied  her  half -empty  beer-glass  for  a 
full  minute  before  speaking  again. 

"  This  doesn't  listen  like  painless  dentistry,  I  know. 
And  Pannie  isn't  goin'  to  pull  that  old  stuff  about  it 
hurtin'  poppa  more'n  it  hurts  little  Willie.  But  it's  one 
o'  the  times  when  plain  talk  is  the  only  kind  that's  goin' 
to  do  any  good.  And  if  I've  had  to  hand  you  out  some 
thing  that's  goin'  to  give  you  a  cramp  in  your  think-tank, 
don't  run  away  with  the  idear  I'm  not  for  yon,  kid !  " 

Storrow  continued  to  brood  over  what  Pannie  had 
said  as  he  took  her  home  to  her  rooming-house  and  left 
her  at  that  side-street  rookery  which  stood  as  a  sort  of 
ironic  monument  to  her  respectability.  Even  after  he 
had  turned  back  into  Broadway,  and  without  being  con 
scious  of  either  time  or  direction  moved  northward  with 
the  thinning  tide  of  midnight  stragglers,  he  continued  to 
review  the  situation  which  Pannie  had  revealed  to  him. 

It  had  been  a  tangled  skein,  he  admitted  as  he  crossed 
Columbus  Circle  and  surrendered  to  the  silent  invitation 
of  the  Park  and  its  appeasing  wintry  solitudes,  a  welter 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  361 

of  bright  threads  and  dark.  It  now  seemed  without  pur 
pose,  unless  one  were  willing  to  dignify  as  purpose  a 
constant  and  unreasoning  hunger  for  happiness.  Yet 
all  the  world  wanted  to  be  happy,  he  contended  as  he 
strode  on,  following  the  curving  driveway  deeper  into 
those  midnight  solitudes  until  the  twin  rows  of  lamps 
and  the  stately  elms  reminded  him  that  he  had  reached 
The  Mall.  And  he  had  only  done  what  all  the  world 
did. 

He  stopped,  in  the  midst  of  that  night  as  mild  as  a 
night  in  May,  and  stared  up  at  the  stars  that  hung  above 
the  tangled  lacery  of  the  elm-tops.  Then  he  looked  east 
ward  and  westward,  towards  Fifth  Avenue  and  Eighth, 
from  which  even  now  the  subdued  noises  of  the  city  stole 
to  him.  But  they  came  musically,  moderated  and  mod 
ulated  by  distance.  And  that,  he  told  himself  as  he  paced 
the  whispering  quietness  of  The  Mall,  is  what  life  must 
be:  an  achieved  and  guarded  tranquillity  in  the  midst  of 
tumult. 

Then  the  stronger  aura  of  light  above  Broadway  caused 
him  to  think  of  Torrie  again.  And  he  remembered  that 
she  too  had  been  hungry  for  happiness  —  had  been  over- 
hungry  for  happiness,  he  amended,  and  he  found  in  that 
new  phrase  a  new  avenue  for  speculation.  Yet  invariably 
and  inevitably  that  avenue  led  back  to  himself.  He  too, 
in  his  over-eagerness,  had  thought  only  of  himself,  was 
still  thinking  only  of  himself,  of  the  atom  which  counted 
so  little  in  the  infinitudes  of  time. 

Most  men,  when  confronted  by  conditions  such  as  his, 
would  have  sought  the  companionship  and  counsel  of 
their  kind.  But  Storrow,  in  this  respect,  stood  different 
to  most  men.  He  nursed  both  the  instincts  and  the  habits 
of  the  confirmed  solitaire,  the  pagan-like  inclination  for 
solitude  during  his  moments  of  stress.  And  having  en 
dured  his  uncompanioned  travail,  he  found  the  whelps 
of  peace  once  more  nosing  against  his  body.  In  the  midst 
of  his  darkness  came  light.  That  relieving  delivery 


362  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

failed  to  take  on  any  touch  of  high  emotional  colouring. 
It  was  marked  by  no  sudden  and  vast  transformation. 
But  he  was  conscious  of  a  change,  a  clarifying  and  re 
leasing  change,  mystified  as  he  remained  as  to  its  source 
and  its  inspiration.  Somewhere  deep  down  in  his  heart, 
as  the  first  inkling  of  this  change  crept  over  him,  a  small 
glimmer  of  warmth  seemed  to  return  to  life.  It  was  the 
light,  he  told  his  own  slightly  bewildered  soul,  which  no 
man  must  let  go  entirely  out.  He  was  confronted  by 
ignominy,  and  he  must  save  himself  from  it.  Above 
everything  else  he  must  guard  and  redeem  his  own  self- 
respect.  And  as  he  once  more  took  thought  of  his  own 
infmitesimally  small  and  struggling  ego,  confronted  by 
forces  it  could  never  overcome,  he  grew  into  a  compre 
hension  of  the  timeless  paradox  that  he  who  gives,  re 
ceives.  It  was  Torrie,  now,  that  he  had  to  think  of.  He 
could  make  the  only  sacrifice  that  was  left  him  to  make. 
He  would  give  Torrie  her  divorce. 

He  knew  well  enough  what  this  meant.  It  meant 
nothing  spectacular  or  heroic,  no  gathering  of  serried 
spear-points  into  his  own  breast.  But  he  would  have  to 
leave  New  York,  leave  it  for  good,  leave  it  so  Torrie 
could  have  that  field  for  her  own.  In  going,  he  could 
carry  away  with  him  the  thought  that  he  had  done  it  for 
her  own  good.  He  would  at  least  have  that  to  sustain 
him. 

Yet  his  decision  brought  with  it  a  subsidiary  impulse 
which  he  found  hard  to  understand.  It  left  him  with  a 
keen  yet  half-impersonal  desire  to  see  Torrie  again,  a 
feeling,  now  that  he  had  made  sure  in  his  own  mind  that 
he  was  going  back  to  Canada,  not  unlike  the  longing  which 
one  has  for  a  farewell  glimpse  of  the  once  beloved  dead. 
He  could  go  to  her  now,  he  knew,  without  trepidation, 
almost  without  regret.  Then  he  stopped  short,  with  a 
question  which  brought  a  bitter-sweet  pang  to  his  body. 
Supposing,  even  yet,  and  in  the  face  of  everything  - 
supposing,  should  that  meeting  prove  auspicious,  Torrie 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  363 

might  startle  him  with  the  claim  that  it  was  not  too  late, 
that  life  began  ane\v  with  every  new  day,  that  they  too 
might  still  -  But  he  smothered  the  thought  as  a  woods 
man  smothers  the  coals  which  if  unguarded  might  grow 
into  a  conflagration. 

Storrow,  the  next  day,  lost  no  time  in  attempting  to 
carry  out  his  decision  to  see  Torrie.  Those  attempts, 
however,  were  not  altogether  satisfactory.  He  tele 
phoned  twice  to  the  huge  apartment-hotel  in  which  she 
was  installed  since  her  success,  before  being  able  to  speak 
to  her  for  a  moment  over  the  wire.  Even  then  she 
seemed  oddly  hesitating  and  restrained,  so  much  so,  in 
fact,  that  Storrow  finally  concluded  that  she  had  been 
speaking  with  other  persons  undesirably  close  to  her. 
But  she  made  an  appointment  readily  enough,  suggesting 
the  next  afternoon,  which  was  not  a  matinee-day,  at  four 
o'clock. 

The  next  day  at  noon,  however,  a  sedate-voiced  woman 
who  explained  herself  as  Miss  Throssel's  private  secre 
tary  called  Storrow  up  on  the  telephone  and  requested 
that  the  appointment  be  postponed  until  Thursday  at 
three,  when  Miss  Throssel  would  be  disengaged  and  very 
glad  to  see  him. 

It  was  Torrie  herself  who  called  up,  when  Thursday 
arrived,  and  asked  him  if  he  could  conveniently  make 
his  call  at  five  that  afternoon  instead  of  three.  She  was 
very,  very  busy,  she  explained  in  a  hollow  and  somewhat 
listless  tone  over  the  wire,  and  she  hoped  the  later  hour 
would  not  be  inconvenient  for  him.  Storrow,  as  he  hung 
up  the  receiver  and  went  methodically  on  with  his  pack 
ing,  solaced  himself  with  the  thought  that  she  still  re 
mained  in  ignorance  of  his  decision  as  to  Krassler's  ac 
tion.  And  she  would  be  less  indifferent  and  less  his 
enemy,  he  felt,  when  she  knew  the  truth. 

Yet  that  momentary  depression  of  spirits  returned  to 
him  when  on  Thursday  afternoon  he  presented  himself 
at  Torrie's  hotel  and  ran  the  gamut  of  door-man  and 


364  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

office-clerk  and  uniformed  page  and  solemn-eyed  secre 
tary.  Miss  Throssel,  it  appeared,  was  dressing,  but 
would  be  able  to  receive  him  in  five  minutes'  time.  It 
began  to  dawn  on  him,  even  before  he  entered  the  ante 
room  where  a  small  and  sinewy  masseuse  waited  beside 
a  shabby  and  patient-eyed  lace-pedlar,  that  the  nurturing 
currents  of  triumph  were  already  causing  Torrie  to 
emerge  from  a  mere  person  into  a  personage.  He  wit 
nessed  the  delivery  of  a  box  of  American  Beauty  roses, 
as  long  as  a  child's  coffin,  and  beheld  a  capped  and  aproned 
maid  lead  a  snapping  King  Charles  spaniel  out  through 
the  room  where  he  waited.  He  heard  the  tinkle  of  a 
telephone-bell,  followed  by  the  carefully  modulated  voice 
of  the  bespectacled  secretary.  Then  he  caught  the  sound 
of  Torrie's  voice,  in  the  room  beyond  the  closed  door,  the 
once  familiar  voice  with  an  altogether  novel  contralto  lilt 
to  it,  even  in  its  listlessness.  Then  the  door  opened  and 
a  brisk  and  blonde  man  with  pale  blue  eyes  and  a  bristling 
moustache  stepped  out.  He  carried  a  black  bag  in  his 
hand,  and  in  his  movements  was  an  odd  mingling  of  the 
autocratic  and  the  deferential.  Storrow  was  inwardly 
debating  whether  he  was  a  Swedish  "  rubber  "  or  a  Ba 
varian  hair-dresser  when  the  woman  with  the  suppressed 
and  secretarial  manner  announced  that  Miss  Throssel 
was  now  at  liberty. 

Storrow,  as  he  stepped  through  the  opened  door,  found 
Torrie  waiting  for  him. 

She  had  apparently  just  slipped  on  a  loose  and  flow 
ing  dressing-gown  of  unrelieved  black.  In  it,  as  she 
stood  confronting  him  from  the  centre  of  the  room, 
she  looked  exceptionally  tall,  with  an  almost  intimidat 
ing  hint  of  the  pontifical  in  her  attitude.  She  was 
paler  and  thinner  than  usual,  the  tissue  of  the  once  milky 
skin  having  taken  on  a  translucence  which  was  new  to 
it.  Yet  it  was  only  her  face,  Storrow  saw,  which  had 
lost  its  old-time  contours,  the  throat  and  arms,  for  all 
their  effect  of  bloodlessness,  remained  as  round  and  firm 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  365 

in  line  as  ever.  Her  hair,  he  noticed  as  he  stood  there 
assailed  by  the  mingled  odours  of  benzoin  and  cut  flowers 
and  pcau  dc  Espagne,  was  much  lighter  than  it  had  been. 
And  as  he  stood  there,  trying  to  decipher  why  these  out 
ward  alterations  could  produce  the  impression  of  a  Torrie 
depersonalized  and  translated  into  a  stranger,  he  found 
himself  very  unhappy  and  ill-at-ease.  His  reaction  to 
that  condition  \vas  a  heavy  effort  at  facetiousness. 

"  And  who  is  the  stately  person  in  spectacles  ?  "  he 
inquired  as  the  impersonal-eyed  secretary  quietly  closed 
the  door  behind  him.  It  was  little  more  than  an  effort 
on  his  part,  as  perverse  as  it  was  forlorn,  to  brush  aside 
the  veils  of  formality  that  had  been  draped  between 
them, —  between  them  who  had  once  been  so  intimate. 
But  he  could  not  help  recalling,  as  the  untimeliness  of  that 
query  came  home  to  him,  what  Charlotte  Kirkner  had 
once  said  about  the  big  moments  of  life  having  the  trick 
of  taking  on  the  aspects  of  littleness. 

"  That's  my  watch-dog,"  was  Torrie's  slowly  intoned 
answer.  Her  face  hardened  a  little  and  she  forced  her 
self  to  meet  Storrow's  frankly  uncomprehending  eyes. 
Then  she  shrugged  a  shoulder,  with  a  diffidence  which 
seemed  new  to  her,  as  she  moved  across  the  room  in  her 
flowing  black  to  speak  for  a  moment  into  a  telephone 
concealed  in  what  looked  like  a  doll's  house  of  brocaded 
silk. 

Storrow,  as  he  waited,  caught  sight  of  the  small  fig 
urine  of  The  Tired  Model  on  the  far  side  of  the  room. 

"  I'm  sorry  I  had  to  keep  you  waiting,"  he  found  Tor 
rie  saying  to  him.  "  But  that  was  Schoenberg  who  just 
went  out.  And  to  get  Schoenberg  to  work  with  you  for 
an  hour  is  like  getting  a  visit  from  royalty." 

Storrow  was  impressed,  as  she  spoke,  by  the  deeper 
and  fuller  timbre  in  her  voice,  as  though  the  organ  had 
taken  on  some  new  and  unnatural  power.  He  noticed, 
too,  the  elision  of  the  "  r's  "  in  her  speech,  which  left  it 
more  Anglicized,  more  formalized  and  full-throated.  It 


366  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

was  the  speech,  he  remembered,  which  tradition  had  al 
ways  imposed  upon  the  stage-star.  And  Torrie  was 
now  one  of  them. 

"  It  doesn't  matter  in  the  least,"  he  said,  referring  to 
his  wait.  "  You're  busy,  of  course,  now  you've  got  a 
success  on  your  hands." 

"  But  it's  not  a  success,  Owen,"  she  said  in  a  manner 
which  reminded  him  that  she  was  much  the  more  self- 
possessed  of  the  two.  "  Smoke  Signals  hasn't  been  a 
success." 

"  It  seems  to  have  the  ear-marks  of  one,"  he  unctuously 
contended.  And  again  she  shrugged  her  shoulder.  It 
was  a  new  trick  of  gesture  that  was  exotic,  unmistakably 
theatric.  Storrow  even  wondered  if  it  were  something 
she  had  learned  under  the  tutorship  of  Krassler.  He 
stirred  restlessly,  with  an  involuntary  movement  of  im 
patience. 

"  I  wish  I  could  ask  you  to  smoke,"  she  said  in  her  mild 
and  impersonal  tones,  noticing  the  movement.  "  But 
Krassler  insists  that  it's  bad  for  my  throat." 

"  It  would  be,  of  course,"  acknowledged  the  other, 
without  giving  thought  to  what  he  was  saying. 

"  There  are  so  many  things  one  has  to  be  careful  about, 
now,"  she  told  him,  almost  in  a  tone  of  complaint.  But 
his  mind  was  still  on  other  days.  It  seemed  odd  that  he 
should  remember  her  as  he  had  seen  her  once  as  he  stood 
beside  her  bed.  Her  face  had  seemed  slightly  swollen, 
and  her  mcuth  was  open  as  she  breathed,  so  that  he  could 
see  her  tongue.  A  sour  odour  of  wine  had  hung  about 
that  sleeping  body,  even  as  he  had  noticed  the  snow-white 
purity  of  the  uncovered  neck  and  breast.  And  now  he 
tried  to  solace  himself  with  the  thought  that  she  was  at 
least  escaping  that  sort  of  thing.  Her  drink,  from  this 
time  forward,  was  to  be  the  champagne  of  success.  That 
would  leave  no  call  for  other  intoxicants. 

"  Krassler's  been  forcing  the  run  of  Smoke  Signals," 
she  was  saying  to  him.  "  It  was  his  star,  you  see,  and 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  367 

not  his  play  that  made  the  hit.  So  the  play  has  got  to 
go  back  to  the  warehouse,  and  I've  got  to  go  through  that 
awful  battle  again." 

"  What  battle  ?  "  asked  Storrow,  disturbed  by  the 
weariness  in  her  voice. 

"  Why,  this  new  production  of  mine  that  Krasslers 
working  on.  He's  amazingly  shrewd  and  clever  at  this 
sort  of  thing,  Owen,  so  much  cleverer  than  the  outsider 
ever  imagines!  He  prophesied  exactly  how  Smoke  Sig 
nals  would  go,  and"  he  made  his  plans  accordingly. 
That's  why  he  snapped  up  the  American  rights  for  Clear 
ance  Papers  while  the  other  New  York  managers  were 
still  waiting  to  see  how  it  was  going  to  go  in  London. 
He  saw  that  Smoke  Signals  would  do  for  a  launching, 
but  that  it  couldn't  carry  me  far.  With  Clearance  Papers 
it  will  be  different.  That  will  have  to  be  a  legitimate 
success.  We'll  have  the  London  production  to  stand  up 
against,  and  I'll  have  more  of  a  straight  part  to  make 
good  in.  And  look  at  the  size  of  it,"  she  added  as  she 
crossed  the  room  and  took  up  a  much  soiled  and  thumbed 
and  over-scrawled  manuscript  in  its  tattered  blue  cover. 
"  Imagine  merely  having  to  memorize  that  number  of 
sides !  And  besides  all  the  work  we're  doing  on  Clear 
ance  Papers,  rehearsing  some  days  as  much  as  seven 
hours  at  a  time,  we've  got  our  eight  performances  every 
week  of  Smoke  Signals,  and  all  the  other  things  that  you 
simply  can't  escape."  She  stared  with  preoccupied  eyes 
out  of  the  rose-draped  window,  as  she  added:  "  It  leaves 
so  much  depending  on  just  one  person!" 

"  So,  after  all,  there's  nothing  really  more  enslaving 
than  success !  "  he  ventured  as  he  grew  into  a  realization 
that  what  he  had  foolishly  interpreted  as  a  spirit  of 
tremendous  reservation  between  them  was  actually  a  pre 
occupation  with  more  imminent  materialities. 

She  looked  about  at  him,  with  a  slow  movement  of  the 
elaborately  coiffured  head,  as  though  pricked  by  some 
muffled  asperity  in  his  words. 


368  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

"  Oh,  no ;  everybody's  awfully  kind,"  she  languidly 
acknowledged.  "But  I  seem  to  be  always  tired,  nowa 
days.  I  don't  sleep  the  way  I  used  to,  and  I  so  often  get 
up  tired  in  the  morning.  And  every  day  there  is  that 
same  awful  grind.  And  I  have  to  watch  my  health,  of 
course,  and  take  the  very  best  care  of  my  throat,  and  find 
time,  in  some  way,  for  an  hour's  sleep  every  evening  be 
fore  I  go  on,  and  " 

She  was  interrupted  by  the  muffled  shrill  of  her  tele 
phone-bell.  Storrow  noticed  her  sigh  as  she  reached  for 
the  instrument  and  answered  the  call.  Then  she  sat 
staring  ahead  of  her,  for  an  abstracted  moment  or  two. 

"  No,"  she  repeated,  "  they  are  all  very  kind  and  good. 
But  I  always  seem  to  be  tired.  And  I  feel  sometimes, 
that  I'm  nothing  but  a  machine,  a  machine  that  belongs  to 
other  people  and  must  never  be  allowed  to  get  dusty,  or 
out  of  order,  or  lie  idle,  no  matter  how  creaky  the  ma 
chine  may  feel  in  some  of  its  joints.  And  sometimes, 
when  I'm  left  alone  with  nothing  to  think  about,  it  seems 
almost  foolish.  But  when  I'm  back  at  the  theatre,  with 
my  make-up  finished  and  my  first-act  gown  on,  and  I 
hear  the  orchestra  and  the  opening  lines  and  get  a  glimpse 
from  the  wings  of  that  big  audience  waiting  —  waiting 
for  me,  Owen,  for  me,  I  forget  all  the  rest.  And  all  I 
remember  is  that  I'm  going  to  hold  that  audience,  and 
make  it  laugh  and  cry  and  acknowledge  my  power  over  it. 
And  that  somehow  seems  to  make  up  for  all  the  rest." 

Storrow,  as  he  heard  her,  remembered  what  Pannie 
Atwill  had  already  said  to  him.  And  he  began  to  see,  as 
Torrie  sat  explaining  in  detail  to  him  just  how  Krassler 
wanted  her  to  handle  her  role  in  Clearance  Papers,  that 
she  was  indeed  lost,  not  only  to  him,  but  to  the  rest  of 
the  world.  She  was  lost  to  that  world,  he  felt,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  she  had  given  herself  to  it.  She  im 
pressed  him  as  a  woman  about  to  be  sacrificed  to  some 
pagan  and  unappeased  idol.  So  engrossed  was  she  in 
that  hieratic  immolation  that  it  suddenly  impressed  him 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  369 

as  foolish  even  to  recall  the  purpose  which  had  brought 
him  into  her  presence.  It  would  be  kinder,  he  told  him 
self,  to  leave  unsaid  what  he  had  intended  to  say.  And 
he  was  not  sorry  when  the  lady  with  the  secretarial  air 
tapped  lightly  but  determinedly  on  the  outer  door. 

"  You  see,"  Torrie  said  with  a  resentful  head-move 
ment  towards  that  door,  "  I  can't  even  have  ten  minutes 
to  myself !  " 

He  took  his  departure,  disturbed  by  a  confusion  of  im 
pressions.  The  most  prominent  of  these  was  the  re 
membered  coolness  of  her  fingers  as  he  shook  hands  with 
her  and  the  awkwardness  of  his  own  tongue  as  he  at 
tempted  to  wish  her  unqualified  success  in  her  work.  He 
went  away  wretched,  with  an  indeterminate  desolation 
eating  at  his  heart,  yet  at  the  same  time  and  in  some 
mysterious  manner  more  satisfied  in  mind,  as  though 
that  visit,  for  all  that  it  had  left  unsaid  on  his  part,  had 
given  a  sense  of  completion  to  what  might  otherwise 
have  retained  a  disturbing  air  of  being  unfinished. 

Two  hours  later  he  succeeded  in  getting  in  touch  with 
Herman  Krassler  over  the  telephone.  He  explained 
that  he  was  no  longer  in  a  position  to  oppose  any  action 
which  his  wife  might  take  towards  obtaining  her  free 
dom,  and  that  Krassler  could  act  accordingly.  The  lat 
ter  coolly,  and  with  no  slightest  trace  of  triumph  in  his 
voice,  announced  that  this  course  was  undoubtedly  the 
best  for  all  concerned. 

Two  days  later,  as  Storrow  was  packing  the  last  of  his 
belongings  in  the  last  of  his  trunks,  he  was  summoned  to 
the  door  of  his  denuded  studio  by  a  sedentary  and  chloro- 
tic-looking  clerk  from  an  attorney's  office,  who  thrust 
into  his  hand  a  document  of  undoubted  legal  aspect. 

'  You're  Owen  Storrow,  aren't  you  ?  "  asked  the  em 
issary  of  the  law. 

And  Storrow,  in  acknowledging  that  he  was,  knew  that 
he  had  duly  and  formally  accepted  service  in  his  wife's 
impending  action  for  an  absolute  divorce. 


CHAPTER    TH  IRTY 

SPRING  comes  tardily  but  none  the  less  beautifully 
to  that  country  which  may  be  said  to  lie  in  the  lap 
of  the  Great  Lakes.  It  comes  with  a  sense  of 
release  after  imprisonment,  of  abandonment  after  re 
straint,  of  tenderness  after  tempest.  It  comes  with  a 
more  riotous  surrender  of  bud  and  leaf  and  blossom,  a 
more  rhapsodic  outburst  from  April's  innumerable  choir 
ing  throats,  a  more  impassioned  craving  for  loveliness  in 
every  azure-mirroring  runnel  and  trillium-starred  valley 
and  robin-haunted  hillside.  It  comes  over  lake  and  field 
and  pine  land  and  burgeoning  orchard  with  the  breath  of  a 
thousand  strange  odours,  as  silvery  sweet  as  wind-blown 
bugles,  transforming  umber  into  emerald,  awakening 
magically  into  life  that  Sleeping  Beauty  known  as  Earth 
and  arraying  her  in  a  radiance  so  etherealized  that  man, 
beholding  it,  finds  his  vernal  gladness  in  some  way  shot 
through  with  sadness  and  the  immemorial  rapture  of  liv 
ing  in  some  way  touched  with  tears. 

Storrow,  once  more  installed  at  Pine-Brae,  beheld  this 
return  of  Spring  to  his  native  land,  and  beheld  it  with 
a  confusion  of  feelings.  He  was  not  altogether  happy, 
and  he  was  not  altogether  unhappy.  Periods  of  vague 
restlessness  seemed  to  alternate  with  periods  of  content 
ment  equally  indeterminate.  But  he  remained,  on  the 
whole,  in  a  neutral  zone  of  toleration  touched  with  ex 
pectancy,  as  though  somewhere  and  at  some  unlooked-for 
time  the  even  tenor  of  his  life  might  snap  off  into  tumult, 
tumult  like  that  of  a  white-watering  rapid  snatching  the 
sluggishness  out  of  a  river.  He  was  oppressed  at  times 
with  a  feeling  of  convalescence,  as  though  he  were  emerg- 

370 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  371 

ing  from  a  long  and  weakening  illness  which  had  sapped 
his  power  of  reacting  to  things.  He  nursed,  in  his  more 
self-conscious  moments,  an  impression  of  being  older 
than  he  ought  to  have  been,  with  an  invalid-like  detach 
ment  from  activities  and  influences  that  should  have  meant 
so  much  to  him. 

But  the  colouring  of  life,  outside  this  persistent  apathy 
which  he  soon  saw  it  would  be  useless  to  combat,  was  not 
unpleasurable  and  not  untouched  with  its  satisfactions. 
He  even  discovered,  as  he  found  himself  more  and  more 
involved  in  the  reconstruction  of  a  property  too  long 
neglected,  that  daily  toil  and  material  distractions  could 
medicine  those  teasing  and  less  tangible  susceptibilities 
of  the  spirit,  so  that  as  Spring  advanced  his  interest  in 
the  work  about  Pine-Brae  became  both  more  engrossing 
and  more  personal.  It  brought,  however,  a  new  clearness 
to  his  eye,  a  deepened  colour  to  his  lean  cheek,  an  old- 
time  hardening  of  hand  and  limb-muscles.  Sometimes, 
indeed,  after  a  full  day  of  labour  in  open  sunlight  arid 
ozonic  northern  air,  he  seemed  narcotized  into  an  indif- 
ferency  that  stood  side  by  side  with  contentment  and 
reached  out  a  russet  hand  to  well-being. 

But  the  one  thing  that  weighed  on  him,  during  those 
earlier  weeks  at  Pine-Brae,  was  his  loneliness.  He  had 
declined  to  reinstate  Uncle  Abe  in  his  old-time  position 
of  housekeeper,  preferring  that  all  ties  with  the  past 
should  be  kept  as  tenuous  as  possible.  Even  as  things 
were,  that  past  had  the  habit  of  cropping  unexpectedly 
out,  with  a  geologic  sort  of  remoteness,  as  it  did  when 
he  found  one  of  his  wife's  hat-pins  stuck  in  the  back  of 
the  old  oak  mantel-piece,  and  still  again  when  he  stumbled 
on  what  remained  of  one  of  Torrie's  inadequate  little 
flower-beds  with  its  scattering  of  fern-roots  and  wood- 
violets  which  she  had  so  carefully  yet  so  childishly  trans 
planted. 

He  had  difficulty,  in  fact,  in  finding  a  suitable  house 
keeper.  For  the  first  two  months,  indeed,  he  had  en- 


372  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

dured  an  old  Englishman  and  his  wife,  each  equally  ad 
dicted  to  the  use  of  gin  and  each  equally  capable,  when 
under  its  influence,  of  prolonged  and  noisy  combat.  The 
cooking  was  far  from  acceptable,  the  disorder  of  the 
house  increased,  and  the  projected  work  on  orchards  and 
buildings  and  line-fences  fell  far  behind  schedule.  Then 
came  an  orgy  and  battle  too  open  to  be  condoned.  After 
dismissing  the  still  gin-soaked  combatants  from  Pine- 
Brae,  Storrow  lived  quite  alone  for  a  few  weeks.  But 
this  effort  at  "  batching  it/'  as  the  vernacular  of  the  coun 
tryside  phrased  such  experiences,  proved  neither  desirable 
nor  profitable.  When  a  neighbour  told  Storrow  of  an 
orphan-girl  "  up  the  Lake  "  whose  mother  and  father  had 
been  drowned  crossing  the  ic.e  to  Pelee  Island,  he  jour 
neyed  to  the  farmer  who  was  giving  the  unfortunate  girl 
temporary  harbourage,  in  the  hope  that  she  might  be 
suitable  as  a  housekeeper.  When  he  learned  that  she 
was  still  a  mere  girl  of  twenty,  however,  he  was  disposed 
to  let  the  matter  drop.  But  her  temporary  guardian  en 
tertained  no  such  qualms. 

"  She's  a  good  girl,  is  Crystal  Cant  well,"  the  younger 
man  was  assured,  "  a  girl  who's  always  kept  to  herself, 
sir,  with  no  nonsense  about  men-folks.  She's  quiet- 
tongued,  sir,  and  as  willin'  a  worker  as  you'd  wish,  and 
not  the  kind  to  be  botherin'  a  young  gentleman  who's  not 
disposed  to  be  botherin'  with  her !  " 

Storrow,  as  he  waited  while  the  girl  was  being  sum 
moned  into  his  presence,  seemed  to  find  the  room  touched, 
not  so  much  with  the  atmosphere  of  the  slave-market, 
but  more  with  the  calloused  and  careless  materialities  of 
the  stock-yard.  And  this  impression  was  in  no  way 
diminished  when  Crystal  stepped  silent  and  embarrassed 
through  the  door.  She  stood,  after  one  quick  and  com 
prehensive  glance  at  him,  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  floor, 
blushing  rose-red  as  Storrow  reiterated  his  doubts  as  to 
the  expediency  of  a  woman  so  young  assuming  control 
of  his  household. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  373 

"  That  woman,  sir,  is  one  in  a  hundred,"  proclaimed 
the  Legree  of  the  invisible  auction-block.  And  still  again 
the  younger  man  studied  the  girl  with  the  waves  of  rose- 
colour  suffusing  her  slightly  averted  face.  The  first  im 
pression  she  gave  him  was  one  of  heaviness,  of  rustic 
timidity.  The  exposed  skin  of  her  neck  and  arms  was  a 
butternut  brown,  and  the  mouth  was  undeniably  large, 
just  as  the  lips  carried  a  line  of  undeniable  sensitiveness. 
It  was  only  her  hair  and  her  eyes,  at  that  first  inspection, 
which  seemed  attractive  to  him.  Her  hair,  bleached  by 
the  open  sun  from  a  hazel-nut  hue  to  almost  the  tint  of 
Roman  gold,  gave  him  the  impression  of  something  tawny 
and  untamed,  with  a  look  of  desert  vastnesses  in  her  face. 
And  the  eyes  themselves  were  large  and  limpid,  a  clouded 
grey-blue  that  showed  violet  in  a  strong  side-light.  They 
had  the  trick  of  taking  on  a  look  of  pathos  as  she  fixed 
her  gaze  on  any  one  object,  a  look  of  wistfulness  which 
might  have  been  termed  beautiful  if  it  had  appeared 
more  consciously  alert.  Her  russet  neck  was  full  and 
round  and  unlined,  with  more  a  suggestion  of  columnar 
strength  than  of  softness.  Her  hands,  too,  were  large, 
but  startlingly  well-shaped  and  suggestive  of  secret  re 
finements  and  secret  capabilities.  It  was  the  black  fringe 
of  lashes,  Storrow's  trained  vision  promptly  noted,  which 
made  her  eyes  look  darker  than  they  really  were.  He 
noticed,  as  he  questioned  her,  that  she  did  not  speak 
quickly,  and  assumed  that  things  would  seldom  stir  her 
acutely.  Yet  she  carried  an  odd  impression  of  capacity 
for  feeling,  of  emotions  carefully  herded  and  corralled. 
And  as  her  shyness  vanished  and  the  blood-waves  re 
turned  less  frequently  to  the  dusky  pigment  of  the  cheek 
he  found  his  earlier  misgivings  slipping  away  from  him. 
She  herself,  he  felt,  was  answer  enough  to  those  mis 
givings. 

So  the  bargain  was  struck,  and  two  days  later  Crystal 
Cantwell  and  her  cow-hide  trunk  tied  with  rope  arrived 
at  Pine-Brae. 


374  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

With  her  advent  came  a  change  to  the  neglected  ami 
musty-aired  house  in  the  midst  of  its  whispering  pine 
groves.  Chaos  in  some  way  became  comfort.  Even 
solitude  became  less  oppressive.  The  new  maid  set  to 
work  with  a  peasant-like  inarticulateness,  agreeing  to  any 
thing  which  Storrow,  as  her  master,  might  suggest,  with 
her  large  and  limpid  eyes  resting  abstractedly  on  his  face 
as  he  talked  to  her.  They  were  not  stupid  eyes,  he  was 
beginning  to  see,  and  what  he  had  first  thought  of  as  their 
bovine  placidity  seemed  more  the  serenity  of  a  soul  incor- 
ruptibly  at  peace  with  itself.  Sometimes,  too,  the  model 
ling  of  her  bared  arm,  of  her  uncovered  neck  or  shoulder, 
startled  him  into  a  momentary  admiration.  As  she  went 
on  with  her  countless  household  tasks,  without  comment 
or  complaint,  he  began  to  respect  her  capacity  for  silence. 
She  seldom  smiled,  it  was  true,  but  on  those  rare  occa 
sions  when  the  slow  red  lips  did  relax,  there  was  a  quiet 
wrarmth  to  the  smile  which  seemed  to  atone  for  its  tardi 
ness.  Yet  this  spirit  of  reluctant  mirth  seldom  extended 
to  her  eyes,  which  were  habitually  mournful.  When  she 
sat,  she  usually  stooped  forward  a  little,  and  if  her  slow 
ness  of  movement,  when  not  at  work,  impressed  Storrow 
as  swan-like,  the  absence  of  easy  grace  from  those  move 
ments  made  him  think,  not  of  a  swan  floating  along 
tranquil  surfaces,  but  of  one  that  had  ventured  on  land 
and  was  moving  a  little  wistfully  towards  some  lost  and 
more  natural  element.  What  puzzled  him  most,  perhaps, 
was  her  air  of  sky-line  spaciousness  when  in  the  open. 
There  she  had  the  trick  of  falling  into  unconsidered  pose's 
and  positions  which  came  to  him  with  the  seal  of  the 
immemorial  on  them,  impressing  him  as  instinctively  true 
and  poignant  and  universal. 

But  all  the  -while,  as  Spring  merged  into  Summer  and 
Summer  brought  its  promise  of  fulfilments,  she  went 
about  her  tasks  apparently  fortified  by  some  large  and 
secret  knowledge.  Just  what  it  was,  Storrow  could  not 
guess.  He  was  able  to  talk  to  her  with  less  restraint  as 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  375 

he  became  more  accustomed  to  her  presence  there.  But 
she  was  never  the  one  to  begin  these  talks.  She  listened 
patiently,  with  her  limpid  eyes  always  on  his  face.  In 
time,  she  even  added  a  ribbon  to  her  hair  and  fell  to 
consulting  the  mail-order  catalogues  on  the  matter  of 
emollients  and  underwear.  In  hot  weather  she  would 
unbutton  her  shirt-waist  and  roll  down  the  loose  collar, 
exposing  a  whiter  fulness  of  throat  and  shoulder.  Stor- 
ro\v  caught  himself,  at  different  times,  studying  the  mild 
roundness  of  that  full  throat,  with  a  feeling  as  remote 
and  yet  as  disturbing  as  the  beat  of  nocturnal  tom-toms 
to  the  children  of  the  children  of  the  jungle.  The  girl 
would  go  on  with  her  work,  giving  no  sign  of  her  knowl 
edge  that  she  was  being  covertly  watched.  And  Storrow 
would  suddenly  remember  uncompleted  labours  in  field 
and  orchard  and  packing-shed,  for  the  task  of  transform 
ing  Pine-Brae  into  the  order  and  beauty  which  he  more 
and  more  wished  for  it  was  not  one  calling  for  idleness. 

The  summer-end,  indeed,  brought  a  stress  of  labour 
that  proved  a  tax  on  the  time  of  both  master  and  maid, 
for  the  position  of  master  and  maid  had  been  preserved 
between  them.  She  had  eaten  only  after  he  had  left  the 
table,  though  once  or  twice  he  had  returned  and  seated 
himself  opposite  her,  to  clear  up  more  fully  some  point 
about  the  household  or  the  farm-work.  Then  came  the 
day,  when  the  season  of  small  fruits  was  at  its  height, 
when  he  announced  that  the  old  arrangements  about  meals 
was  a  waste  of  time  and  labour.  From  then  on,  he  told 
her,  it  would  be  better  for  them  to  have  their  meals  to 
gether.  And  from  then  on,  too,  he  fell  into  the  habit  of 
addressing  her  as  "  Crystal." 

So  Crystal,  instead  of  waiting  until  he  had  finished, 
quietly  took  her  place  opposite  him.  Storrow  found  that 
change  both  so  pleasant  and  so  convenient  that  it  struck 
him  as  foolish  in  being  so  late  in  suggesting  itself.  Yet 
more  than  ever  that  companion  confronting  him  across 
their  small  island  of  snow-\vhite  linen  seemed  fortified 


376  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

by  some  large  and  secret  knowledge  which  he  could  neither 
name  nor  understand.  Her  limpid  eyes  carried  no  look 
of  elation,  but  there  were  times  when  some  elusive  note 
in  her  bearing  implied  that  she  had  won  a  victory.  She 
became  more  fastidious  in  her  dress,  more  studious  in  the 
manner  in  which  she  did  up  her  heavy  braids  of  hair. 
She  even  asked  for  books  to  read  in  the  evening  when 
her  work  was  done,  books  which  he  considered  "  improv 
ing."  Once  or  twice  he  made  an  effort  to  describe  to  her 
what  his  life  in  New  York  had  been  like,  with  a  moment 
ary  wistful  desire  to  revive  memories  which  were  becom 
ing  disconcertingly  phantasmal.  But  imagination  and 
curiosity  alike  seemed  unable  to  bridge,  with  her,  the  inter 
stellar  immensities  between  Pine-Brae  and  that  far-off 
city  on  its  triangular  island  of  unrest.  And  finding  that 
his  intentions  led  only  to  a  mutual  depression,  Storrow 
made  no  effort  to  repeat  them. 

One  night,  on  coming  in  for  his  evening  meal,  leg- 
weary  and  rubicund  and  placid-minded  from  his  long 
hours  of  labour  in  the  open  air,  he  found  Crystal  in  diffi 
culties.  She  had  cut  a  gash  in  her  hand  while  trying 
to  open  a  glass  sealer  of  fruit,  and  when  he  first  caught 
sight  of  her  she  was  struggling,  none  too  successfully, 
to  tie  a  strip  of  cotton  over  the  wound.  He  stopped  and 
stared  at  her  as  she  held  one  end  of  the  cotton-strip  be 
tween  her  strong  white  teeth  and  with  her  free  hand  at 
tempted  to  draw  the  knot  tight. 

"  Hadn't  I  better  do  that  for  you?  "  he  suggested. 

"  I  think  I  can  manage  it,"  she  said,  without  looking 
up  at  him.  He  laughed,  and  an  answering  smile  came  to 
her  grave  face,  at  her  lack  of  success. 

"  We've  got  to  have  a  neater  job  than  that,"  he  said 
as  he  placed  a  chair  for  her  and  she  sank  obediently  into 
it. 

Then  he  took  the  wounded  hand  in  his  own  and  in 
spected  the  cut.  It  was  neither  deep  nor  disturbing,  but 
Storrow  bent  over  it  abstractedly,  arrested  by  the  rich 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  377 

scarlet  of  the  blood  which  oozed  slow  drop  by  drop  from 
the  short  wound.  It  impressed  him  as  the  flaunting 
crimson  banner  of  bodily  vigour  and  health,  as  an  ad 
vertisement  of  some  superb  animal  vitality  which  had 
hitherto  escaped  his  attention.  And  as  he  carefully  re- 
wrapped  the  hurt  hand  he  found  a  sudden  satisfaction  in 
the  nearness  of  her  breathing  body  to  his  own.  He 
turned  away  hurriedly,  in  fact,  as  soon  as  the  knot  had 
been  tied  in  the  strip  of  red-stained  cotton,  disquieted  by 
a  reaction  which  could  come  with  so  little  warning.  For 
at  that  accidental  contact  of  flesh  with  flesh  he  had  felt 
in  his  blood,  remote  and  mysterious,  the  beating  of  an 
cestral  tom-toms.  He  became  suddenly  aware  of  a  pre 
cipice,  a  precipice  which  skirted  disturbingly  close  to  the 
path  he  had  been  following. 

As  they  ate  their  meal  together  that  night  Storrow 
found  his  mind  dwelling  more  actively  on  the  loneliness 
which  engulfed  them,  on  their  remoteness  from  the  outer 
world  and  its  interests.  As  he  stared  across  the  table  at 
the  woman  confronting  him  he  saw  that  her  colour  was 
higher  than  usual.  Her  eyes,  too,  seemed  unwilling  to 
meet  his,  and  the  silence  that  fell  on  the  room  became 
electric,  alarming. 

He  sat  watching  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  faded  but 
freshly  ironed  pink  shirtwaist  which  covered  her  bosom. 
He  watched  it  for  a  long  time.  Then  he  slowly  rose 
from  his  chair,  crossed  to  her  side  of  the  table,  and  stood 
beside  her. 

She  neither  glanced  up  nor  moved  as  he  rested  one 
hand  on  her  heavily  plaited  hair.  With  his  other  hand 
he  slowly  lifted  her  chin  and  stared  into  her  face.  There 
was  no  look  of  wonder  in  her  eyes.  She  neither  moved 
nor  spoke.  And  the  next  moment,  stooping  lower,  he 
kissed  her. 

Why  he  did  so.  he  scarcely  knew.  Instinct  told  him 
that  it  was  inexpedient.  After-thought  warned  him,  even 
as  he  felt  the  vital  warmth  of  the  full  red  lips,  that  the 


378  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

movement  was  in  the  nature  of  a  compromise,  a  capitula 
tion  to  a  wayward  and  momentary  impulse.  But  the 
scar  of  some  old  wound  ached  in  his  heart.  He  felt 
alone  in  the  world,  as  alone  in  the  world  as  he  knew  the 
woman  at  his  side  to  be.  Life,  he  felt,  still  owed  him 
something,  though  he  was  unable  to  define  the  nature 
of  that  debt.  Yet  the  thing  was  all  wrong,  he  reiterated 
as  his  thoughts  went  back  to  other  and  earlier  days. 
And  the  memory  of  those  days  caused  him  suddenly  to 
feel  sorry  for  the  limpid-eyed  woman  whose  hand  he  still 
abstractedly  held  in  his.  He  had  remembered  how  little 
it  was  he  could  ever  give  her ;  the  husks  and  ashes  of  his 
wasted  youth,  the  remnants  of  a  life  worn  shoddy  and 
thin.  His  spirit  had  been  left  dry,  he  told  himself,  even 
though  his  veins  could  still  sing  with  the  wayward  blood 
of  man's  desire. 

As  he  stared  down  at  the  girl's  hand,  roughened  by 
wind  and  water,  hardened  and  calloused  by  toil,  it  struck 
him  as  equally  tragic  that  she  might  demand  nothing 
more  of  him  than  this  same  remnant  of  a  wasted  life, 
that  she  might  stand  ready  to  be  doubly  cheated,  by  her 
self  as  well  as  by  him.  And  that  filled  him  with  a  vague 
pity  which  prompted  him  for  a  moment  to  cover  that 
thrice  pitiful  hand  with  his  own,  almost  protectingly,  be 
fore  he  turned  and  walked  out  of  the  room,  without  a 
spoken  word. 

But  the  ice  had  been  broken.  The  silent  compact  of 
intimacy  had  been  established.  It  was  only  too  easy, 
when  they  sat  alone  and  idle  again,  for  him  to  reach  over 
and  draw  her  passive  head  down  against  his  shoulder. 
When  he  kissed  her,  this  time,  he  did  so  with  less  hesita 
tion  and  less  self-torturing  exhumation  of  memories. 
It  was  less  impersonal,  that  kiss,  and  less  meditative. 
Yet  even  then,  and  still  later  when  he  kissed  her  still  more 
impetuously  and  more  frequently,  he  felt  sorry  for  her. 
He  was  haunted  by  the  impression  that  he  was  doing  her 
a  vast  injustice.  But  their  meals,  as  they  sat  one  on 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  379 

each  side  of  the  scrupulously  white-covered  table,  became 
more  animated  with  talk.  Through  the  lengthening 
autumn  evenings  he  fell  into  the  habit  of  reading  aloud 
to  her  as  she  sewed  beside  him.  And  in  that  companion 
ship  he  found  a  completeness  which  was  even  disturbing, 
hinting  as  it  did  at  the  immaterial  masonries  of  self- 
sufficiency  which  were  slowly  and  insidiously  immuring 
them  from  the  rest  of  the  world. 

The  completeness  of  that  divorce  came  unexpectedly 
home  to  him  when  the  mail  brought  to  Pine-Brae  the 
heavily  embossed  announcement  of  Charlotte  Kirkner's 
marriage  to  Chester  Hardy.  Along  with  it  came  a  letter 
from  Charlotte  herself,  a  brief  but  blithe  letter  telling 
him  they  were  off  to  Capri  for  the  winter  and  that  if 
Owen  would  meet  them  in  Naples  about  the  end  of  March 
they  could  all  have  a  wonderful  Easter  together  in  Rome. 

"  You've  had  bad  news/'  said  the  red-handed  girl  who 
had  paused  for  the  second  time,  in  her  task  of  clearing 
away  the  supper  dishes,  to  glance  at  Storrow  as  he  sat 
before  the  fire  turning  this  letter  over  and  over  in  his 
hand. 

"  Two  old  friends  of  mine  have  been  married,"  he  said 
as  he  realized  the  uselessness  of  going  into  further  ex 
planations.  But  he  was  able  to  laugh  a  little.  "  And 
you  wouldn't  call  that  bad  news,  would  you,  Crystal;  a 
man  marrying  the  woman  he  loves  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him  with  solemn  eyes. 

"  Not  if  the  woman  loves  him  back,"  she  said  as  she 
piled  dish  after  dish  on  her  round  black  tray.  And  the 
unconsidered  sagacity  of  that  statement  did  not  come 
home  to  him  until  he  had  lighted  his  lantern  and  trudged 
out  to  the  stables  to  make  sure  his  stock  was  all  safe  and 
sound  for  the  night. 

It  was  not,  indeed,  until  the  end  of  a  winter  which  had 
proved  strangely  mild  for  the  Lake  region  that  anything 
occurred  to  disrupt  the  quiet  flow  of  the  uncounted  days. 
Storrow  noticed,  one  crisp  March  morning  of  inter- 


380  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

mingled  frost  and  sunlight  which  had  sent  him  in  to 
breakfast  with  tingling  body  and  momentarily  elated 
spirits,  that  Crystal's  face  as  she  poured  his  coffee  was 
both  clouded  and  colourless. 

"Aren't  you  feeling  well?"  he  asked  as  he  took  the 
steaming  cup  from  her  hand. 

"  I'm  frightened,"  she  said,  avoiding  his  eyes. 

"Frightened?"  he  repeated,  disturbed  by  the  pathos 
in  her  downcast  face.  "  What  are  you  frightened 
about?" 

"  About  something  that's  happened,"  she  finally  ac 
knowledged. 

"  What  is  it?  "  he  asked,  still  at  sea. 

"  It's  something  we  should  have  thought  about,  in  time," 
she  said  as  she  compelled  her  gaze  to  meet  his.  And  she 
knew,  the  next  moment,  that  he  finally  understood. 

He  found  himself  accepting,  without  any  positive  re 
action,  a  truth  which  should  have  been  not  only  disturb 
ing  but  alarming.  That  she  herself  should  have  accepted 
it  calmly,  as  the  women  of  her  race  had  doubtlessly  ac 
cepted  it  for  ages  back,  did  not  impress  him  as  unusual. 
But  he  remained  puzzled  by  the  discovery  that  he  himself 
was  not  as  deeply  stirred  as  he  ought  to  have  been.  In 
one  way,  indeed,  he  stood  not  ungrateful  for  this  new 
contingency  which  had  been  thrust  upon  him,  since  it 
carried  a  promise  of  giving  selvage  to  the  fabric  of  ex 
istence,  direction  and  purpose  to  what  had  hitherto  been 
merely  drifting. 

They  were  married  promptly  and  without  ceremony  by 
the  Baptist  minister  of  a  neighbouring  town.  Storrow, 
who  had  encountered  a  number  of  small  but  irritating 
obstacles  in  obtaining  a  license,  since  the  Dominion  in 
which  he  resided  seemed  disposed  to  ignore  the  legal 
status  of  a  foreign  divorce  decree,  did  not  take  his  hollow- 
chested  reverend  friend  into  his  confidence  with  regard 
to  that  earlier  marriage,  though  he  made  the  fee  as  sub 
stantial  as  his  purse  would  allow. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  381 

Out  of  the  happenings  of  that  day  Storrow  remem 
bered  the  threadbare  parsonage  parlour  with  its  worn 
plush  furniture,  the  pinched  and  plaintive  face  of  the 
clergyman  mumbling  so  hurriedly  through  the  abbreviated 
ritual,  the  imperturbable  quiet  dignity  of  the  girl  who 
hung  on  his  arm,  the  peering  faces  of  children,  appar 
ently  as  thick  as  rabbits  in  a  warren,  and  the  tired  voice 
of  a  woman  speaking  beyond  a  closed  door  and  repeating 
her  warning  of  "  Don't  feed  the  gold-fish,  dearie !  "  He 
remembered  the  cool  and  thoughtful  eyes  of  his  wife  as 
they  drove  home  side  by  side,  and  he  remembered  another 
ceremony  of  the  same  nature,  in  an  unspeakably  disor 
dered  and  stuffy  office  which  had  smelt  of  tobacco-smoke 
and  mouldy  books.  But  he  was  stirred  and  disturbed 
less  by  the  memory  than  the  atmosphere  of  mustiness  and 
forlorn  emptiness  which  hung  about  it.  Time,  he  began 
to  see,  was  working  its  purpose,  Time  the  avenger,  Time 
the  healer. 

His  wife,  as  the  quiet  tenor  of  life  was  resumed  at 
Pine-Brae,  did  not  seem  to  ask  for  any  added  intimacy. 
They  soon  took  up  the  old  routine  again,  and  fell  back 
into  the  old  ways.  But  there  was  a  difference.  Incon 
spicuous  filaments  of  feeling  and  association  were  day 
by  day  thrown  out;  subliminal  ties  more  and  more  as 
serted  themselves ;  more  ponderable  and  at  the  same  time 
more  imprisoning  became  the  obligations  to  a  newer  and 
unlocked  for  life.  If  Storrow  struggled  at  all  against 
this  sense  of  impending  anchorage,  of  ineluctable  rootage, 
his  struggle  was  both  a  secret  and  an  ineffectual  one. 
Yet  as  Spring  came  once  more  to  the  lap  of  the  Great 
Lakes  he  found  himself  possessed  by  an  unreasoning  and 
slowly  increasing  unrest.  He  explained  to  Crystal  that 
there  were  business  reasons  why  he  should  go  to  New 
York  for  a  week. 

To  this  she  offered  no  trace  of  objection.  She  sur 
prised  him,  indeed,  by  saying  the  change  would  do  him 
good,  and  crowned  him  with  a  vague  misery  by  the 


382  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

meticulous  care  with  which  $he  made  ready  and  packed 
the  things  he  would  need  for  the  journey. 

"  If  I  never  come  back,"  he  said,  laughing  to  dissemble 
the  vague  homelessness  that  gnawed  at  his  heart,  as  he 
said  good-bye  to  her,  "  you'll  see  that  Lady  Dorcas 
doesn't  eat  that  second  setting  of  eggs,  won't  you?" 

"  You'll  come  back,"  quietly  responded  his  wife,  with 
her  cool  and  limpid  eyes  resting  for  a  moment  on  his 
'face,  where,  for  some  unaccountable  reason,  the  colour 
slowly  mounted  and  receded. 


CHAPTER    THIRTY-ONE 

STORROW,  as  his  train  came  to  a  stop  beneath  the 
arches  of  the  New  York  viaduct,  was  troubled  by 
a  world-strangeness  wThich  tended  to  chill  and 
cramp  his  soul.  The  spectacle  of  countless  thousands, 
intent  on  their  own  ends,  still  again  impressed  him  with 
his  insignificance,  reviving  the  thought  that  he  was  noth 
ing  more  than  an  infinitesimal  atom  in  that  whirling  mael 
strom  of  life.  He  found  himself  surrounded  by  fellow- 
travellers  immured  in  their  own  interests,  hurrying  on, 
with  an  empty-eyed  preoccupation  peculiar  to  city  throngs, 
to  their  unknown  tasks  and  destinations.  He  stared  into 
flat-windows  and  caught  glimpses  of  life,  bald  life  in 
crowded  and  sordid  hives,  incredibly  close  at  hand  and  at 
the  same  time  incredibly  remote  from  him.  He  emerged 
into  a  world  of  colour,  of  hurried  intentness  touched 
with  lightheartedness,  of  grinding  wheels  and  proces 
sional  street-crowds,  of  uncomprehended  panoramic 
movements  about  gay-windowed  shop-fronts,  of  dizzy 
iron  structures  concealing  their  gaunt  limbs  under  casings 
of  stone  as  white  as  ivory,  of  clean-swept  morning 
avenues  with  an  old-world  quietness  still  on  them  and 
the  huddled  centuries  confounded  by  those  tip-tilted 
streets  known  as  skyscrapers  within  a  stone's  throw  of  a 
chalet  from  France  and  a  Roman  palassio  and  a  Greek 
temple  of  books,  pallid-walled  and  pagan-simple,  that 
might  have  survived  through  the  cool  and  quiet  of  time 
from  the  day  of  Eratosthenes. 

It  was  a  mellower  and  a  more  pictorial  world,  Storrow 
found,  a  world  which  was  not  slow  to  weave  about  him 
its  old  allurement  at  the  same  time  that  he  awakened  to 

383 


384  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

his  increasing  estrangement  from  it.  He  was  coming 
back  to  it,  he  saw,  as  a  traveller  visits  a  foreign  country, 
unengulfed  by  its  anaesthetizing  tides  of  action,  sensitized, 
because  of  his  very  aloofness,  to  that  glamour  which  at 
taches  to  any  terra  incognita,  yet  vaguely  wistful  for 
some  accidental  tie  to  renew  his  relationship  with  his  own 
kind.  For,  even  in  a  year  or  two,  Time,  in  that  city  of 
change,  had  wrought  its  changes.  And  as  though  in 
sympathy  with  his  own  secret  emotions,  that  April  morn 
ing  was  slowly  overcast  with  clouds  blown  in  from  the 
sea,  the  shadows  in  the  narrow  street-canyons  became 
less  defined,  traffic-policemen  and  taxi-drivers  appeared 
in  tarpaulins,  and  by  noon  the  city  had  settled  down  to  a 
half -day  of  warm  but  steady  Spring  rain.  .  .  . 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  when  a  dripping  taxi-cab, 
with  the  tire-chains  slapping  its  rear  fenders,  turned 
from  the  deserted  east  side  of  Madison  Square  into 
Twenty-Fourth  Street  and  drew  up  at  the  curb  before  an 
old  red-brick  studio  building.  The  passenger  in  the  grey 
raincoat  stepped  out  of  the  taxi,  paid  his  fare,  and  watched 
that  vehicle  as  it  went  slapping  off  again  through  the 
steady  torrent  that  seemed  to  have  washed  clean  the  very 
bones  of  the  city.  Then  he  looked  briefly  but  thought 
fully  up  at  the  red-brick  house-front,  surprised  at  the 
sense  of  contraction  that  reigned  there,  as  though  the 
walls  in  front  of  him  had  shrunk  and  withered  and  rough 
ened  like  the  skin  of  a  winter  apple.  He  hesitated  for  a 
moment  as  he  stepped  in  through  the  gloomy  doorway, 
and  hesitated  still  again  to  sniff  the  assailing  odours  as  he 
slowly  mounted  the  stairs. 

When  he  came  to  the  top  floor  he  stopped,  leaning  ab 
stractedly  against  the  worn  balustrade  and  staring  along 
the  half -lighted  hallway.  Then  he  advanced  slowly  to 
wards  the  second  door  on  the  left  where,  hearing  the 
sound  of  music,  he  stood  with  knitted  brows,  listening. 
It  was  a  piano  that  he  heard,  played  half  idly  as  a 
woman's  voice  hummed  the  air,  at  times  scarcely  audible. 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  385 

But  he  knew  that  it  was  the  "  Kennst  du  Das  Land  ?  " 
song  from  Mignon,  and  he  continued  to  listen,  more  to 
the  notes  than  to  the  humming  voice,  with  a  sudden  and 
uncontrolled  constriction  of  the  throat. 

After  the  last  chord  had  died  away  he  continued  to 
stand  there  with  one  hand  against  the  shabby  door-frame. 
But  he  took  a  deep  breath  as  he  finally  raised  this  hand 
and  tapped  on  the  faded  panel. 

There  was  a  wait  of  several  moments.  He  was  on  the 
point  of  repeating  the  knock,  in  fact,  when  the  door  was 
opened  by  a  surprisingly  young  but  sedentary-looking 
woman  with  bobbed  hair.  She  wore  a  smudged  painter's 
smock  on  which  a  small  bunch  of  violets  held  together 
with  tin-foil  seemed  to  have  been  freshly  pinned.  And 
her  own  almost  colourless  face,  still  unlined  and  round 
with  youth,  seemed  to  echo  in  its  shadows  the  violet-blue 
colour-tones  from  the  little  nose-gay  that  rose  and  fell 
with  the  breathing  of  her  round  young  breast. 

The  stranger  in  the  doorway,  for  a  moment,  seemed  to 
experience  some  difficulty  in  explaining  himself. 

"  I  wonder,"  he  finally  ventured,  "  if  I  might  have  a 
look  at  this  studio  of  yours?" 

The  girl  with  the  bobbed  hair  seemed  unable  to  under 
stand  him.  Yet  a  more  pointed  inspection  of  his  figure 
assured  her  he  was  something  more  than  a  mere  street- 
beggar.  And  the  Prussian-blue  eye  with  the  animal-like 
glow  in  it  impressed  her  as  an  amazingly  gentle  eye,  as 
an  eye  to  remember,  and,  if  she  could  get  rid  of  the  slight 
haggardness  which  gave  it  an  untimely  impression  of 
age,  as  an  eye  which  she  would  some  day  like  to  paint. 

"  I'm  afraid  I'm  interrupting  you,"  the  stranger  was 
saying.  "  But  the  truth  of  the  matter  is,  this  room  was 
once  —  I  mean  that  I  myself  lived  here  once,  and  " 

'  That  must  have  been  some  time  ago,"  interrupted 
the  girl  with  the  bobbed  hair,  almost  sceptically.  And 
her  visitor  remembered  that,  as  time  was  reckoned  in  her 
city  of  unrest  and  change,  it  was  a  very  long  time  ago. 


386  THE  WINE  OF  LIFE 

He  moved  his  head  slowly  up  and  down,  in  assent. 
Then  the  young  \voman,  as  she  swung  the  door  wider, 
laughed  awkwardly,  apparently  infected  by  the  awkward 
ness  of  her  visitor.  It  was  then  and  only  then  that  this 
visitor  caught  sight  of  the  long-haired  young  man  seated 
on  the  piano-bench,  with  his  back  to  them.  His  position 
there  implied  suspended  action,  patient  withdrawal  from 
a  colloquy  in  which  he  could  have  no  interest,  and  served 
to  increase  the  embarrassment  of  the  sober-eyed  intruder 
who  stood  peering  about  into  the  shadowy  corners  of  an 
all  too  familiar  chamber. 

"  I'm  afraid  it's  not  very  tidy,"  ventured  its  new  pro 
prietor  as  she  followed  that  slow-moving  stare  about  the 
room.  "  And  I  suppose  this  old  skylight  leaked  in  your 
day,  just  as  it  does  in  mine?  " 

But  that  question,  if  it  was  meant  for  a  question,  re 
mained  unanswered.  The  quiet-eyed  man  seemed  still 
intent  on  his  inspection  of  the  studio,  wall  by  wall  and 
point  by  point.  Between  the  two  big  windows,  where 
his  Sentinel  Wolf  had  once  stood,  were  pinned  an 
array  of  girls'  heads  in  sepia,  all  amazingly  alike,  all 
amazingly  doll-like  in  their  dehumanizing  prettiness. 
Some  of  them,  he  remembered,  he  had  seen  on  magazine- 
covers,  but  he  gave  them  little  time  or  thought,  for  they 
were  not  to  be  reckoned  among  the  links  which  were  lead 
ing  him  back  to  the  past.  Yet  many  other  trivial  details 
of  the  room,  as  the  rain  continued  to  beat  on  roof  and 
skylight  with  an  immeasurably  sorrowful  sound,  he 
drank  in  hungrily  and  with  an  increasing  look  of  abstrac 
tion  in  his  eyes.  For  it  seemed  a  very  long  time  ago, 
now,  since  this  was  his  home.  And  as  he  continued  to 
stand  there,  communing  with  his  memories,  confronting 
the  days  of  his  dead  past,  the  youth  with  the  averted  face 
reached  up  to  the  piano-top  for  a  small  stringed  instru 
ment  known  as  a  ukelele,  and  sounded  a  not  insignificant 
chord  or  two  on  its  wires.  The  woman  in  the  smock 
also  moved  half  impatiently  to  one  of  the  windows, 


THE  WINE  OF  LIFE  387 

against  which  the  rain  was  beating  quietly  and  steadily. 

Her  visitor's  rough  face,  which  seemed  to  have  lost  its 
earlier  russet  tone,  coloured  slightly  with  embarrassment. 
He  murmured  something  about  being  very  sorry,  and 
also  being  grateful,  and  turned  and  walked  slowly  to 
wards  the  door. 

Yet  when  he  had  passed  out  through  that  door  he 
turned  and  looked  back  again.  He  did  so  without  seem 
ing  to  be  conscious  of  the  girl  who  had  resumed  her  posi 
tion  at  the  keyboard,  while  the  youth  with  the  ukelele 
stood  close  beside  her.  He  heard,  yet  did  not  hear,  the 
concerted  chords  which  the  two  instruments  threw  out 
across  the  quiet  shadows,  for  at  the  moment  he  was  con 
sorting  with  the  kindly  ghosts  of  other  days.  And  as 
he  saw  the  youth  with  the  ukelele  lean  closer  over  the  girl 
on  the  piano-bench  it  came  poignantly  home  to  him  how 
he  himself  was  merely  an  atom  in  the  infinite  currents  of 
Time,  a  moment's  whisper  in  the  vast  and  inexplicable 
chorus  of  life.  The  dimly-lighted  room  with  its  shadows 
and  disorder,  its  faded  furniture  and  its  time-yellowed 
walls  from  which  the  shallow  sepia  faces  smiled  so  mock 
ingly,  took  on  a  ghostly  aspect  as  he  stared  at  it.  Yet 
its  very  drabness  seemed  for  a  moment  to  stand  touched 
with  glamour,  enriched  with  irrecoverable  memories. 
They  were  not  happy  memories,  a  great  many  of  them. 
But  Time,  in  some  way,  was  striving  to  redeem  them,  to 
heal  them  of  their  uglinesses.  In  that  room,  he  felt,  the 
best  of  his  life  lay  sealed  and  coffined.  It  held  his  past, 
his  dead  past,  that  could  never  again  know  wonder  and 
rapture  and  youth. 

He  turned  away  and  went  slowly  down  the  familiar 
worn  treads  of  the  stairs,  feeling  old  and  neutral,  with 
abstraction  in  his  eyes  and  a  dull  ache  in  his  heart.  He 
stepped  out  into  the  grey  light  of  the  late  afternoon 
weighed  down  by  a  vague  regret  for  his  wasted  life.  He 
wondered  if  it  might  have  been  different,  if  only  he  had 
awakened  earlier  to  his  power  of  directing  it  differently. 


A     000  822  449     5 


